







Class PEllll_ 

Book_ .Or 

Copiglit N° . __ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 











V 






PH 

O 

o 

£ 


a 

hP 


ry* 

pq 


rg 

o 

9 , ^ 
9 % 

a & 

3 o 

HH 

M H 

5 o 


w 

« 

H 

C 

P-H 


02 

pq 

pq 

£ 

S**1 


pq 

Q g 

pq 55 


Q 

£ 

pq 

m 


E-* 

H 


^5 

Q 
£ <3 


02 

PP 

*rH 


O 

Q 


K 

H 

O 

£ 

< 



What different classes of words arc represented by the figures in this picture? See page 146. 




















SENTENCE SENSE 


AND 

VERB USAGE 


BY 

ELLEN E. GARRIGUES 

> i 

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, DE WITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL 

NEW YORK 

AND 

MAXWELL W. NURNBERG 

TEACHER OF ENGLISH, DE WITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL AND 
NEW YORK CHAPTER, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF BANKING 


O 

1 

0 


* o > 


> 



% 


NEW YORK 

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 





U f/ll 

.S: 3 z 


COPYRIGHT, 1923 , BY 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, IN®. 


PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 


OCT 19 *23 

©C1A760414 

-V'O I 


PREFACE FOR TEACHERS 


It is with diffidence that the writers of this little book 
bring it into print. The material it contains is in no sense 
exhaustive, even in the parts of grammar which it takes up. 
Neither is it, in the most thorough sense, scholarly. The 
adjectives which the authors hope will be applied to it are, 
rather, helpful and practical . A great part of its content 
has been tried out in mimeographed lessons in a large high 
school, where the majority of the pupils are of foreign 
parentage. Much of its material is compiled from lessons 
that teachers have found it necessary to compose in order 
to teach elements of grammar which are usually taken for 
granted. It is the result, therefore, of experience rather 
than of learning. 

The book is, in one respect, conservative, and in another, 
smaller way, radical. The subject matter or the aim may 
be said to be conservative. Nowhere, unless in minor 
details of terminology, have the writers tried to set new 
standards, or to accept as correct new forms still in the 
making. Such decisions are of so delicate a nature that 
they should be left to great philologists, whose view is so 
broad that present variation seems negligible. Their knowl¬ 
edge covers so vast a range that they can look upon the 
grammatical sins of the uneducated with amused tolerance 
and with a belief that the outcome can, in the end, hardly 
be other than good. 

Makers of school grammars may consider the book radi¬ 
cal, the stress ill advised, and the material too limited; for 
the authors have done many things they should not have 
done and left undone many things they should have done. 
It deals largely with two subjects: sentence structure and 

iii 


IV 


PREFACE 


the forms and uses of the verb. Long experience in a 
metropolitan high school has proved to them that the 
teaching of these fundamentals is among the most necessary 
and difficult of the various tasks that the teacher of English 
must perform. Still another reason for stressing tense and 
verb usage is the wish of those teaching other languages 
that students have some concepts on which instruction 
may be based. It is desirable, therefore, that verbs be 
taken up early in the high school course and returned to 
frequently. 

The writers have violated what many grammarians con¬ 
tend is a psychological principle, in presenting faulty 
English for correction. But they firmly believe that the 
environment of the city-bred American of high school age 
has so accustomed him to hearing incorrect English that no 
harm can be done by displaying examples for correction. 
Indeed they hope rather that inoculation with these 
chosen examples, drawn from his experience, may act as a 
vaccine and establish some slight immunity. For so com¬ 
mon are the mistakes that it is only by presenting them as 
mistakes that they will be recognized at all. 

This book is intended as initial work in grammar for the 
high school, wherever that work may begin. However, as 
its treatment is somewhat different from that of text books 
commonly used, it is possible that teachers who like its 
method will find it a book to arouse interest in grammar 
higher up in the course. 

The last three lessons of the first part: Dependent 
Clauses, Sequence of Tenses, and Mood, are considered 
by the writers too difficult for earlier terms in high school. 
They are added only to complete more nearly the subjects 
with which the book deals. It is possible, however, that 
teachers may wish to take up the rules which are arrived 
at in these lessons, and their application, without attempt¬ 
ing to make pupils understand the discussion which leads 


PREFACE 


V 


up to the rules. The second part of the book, which has no 
bearing on the original subject matter, contains material 
taken up early in high school English. 

It may be felt that the lessons are too much worked out 
to permit individuality in teaching. But the text will 
demand much of the able instructor. As the lessons are 
long and the approach new, success in the use of the book 
will depend on the careful decision of the teacher as to 
just how much should be taken up in class and how much 
left for preparation at home. 

Care will have to be taken in public schools that the book 
is not ruined by having the punctuation exercises worked 
out in the text. 

In some of the exercises, the authors have drawn their 
material from other sources and adapted it to their needs: 
The original of “Clive” is the poem of the same name by 
Robert Browning; “Butterflies” and “The Search” are 
adaptations of two stories told by Carl Sandburg; “The 
Ugly Duckling” is from Hans Christian Anderson; and 
“ Washington at Twenty-one ” is from Elbert Hubbard. 

The authors acknowledge their indebtedness to The New 
York Times and to the artist Mr. Hans Stengel for permis¬ 
sion to use the illustration opposite the title page. 

The authors wish to thank their co-laborers of the Eng¬ 
lish Department in the De Witt Clinton High School for 
furnishing exercises and for trying out the work in classes. 
It is stimulating to work with so earnest and able a group 
of teachers. They deserve much of the credit for any 
practical results which the use of the book may attain. 

New York, 

June 1, 1923 




















CONTENTS 


LESSON PAGE 

PART I 

I. Our Language. 1 

II. Origin op Language; Parts of Speech. 10 

III. Inflection. 16 

IV. The Sentence; Subject and Predicate. 22 

V. Types of Sentences and Punctuation. 26 

VI. Kinds of Verbs. 30 

VII. Person and Number. 35 

VIII. Time and the Simple Tenses. 40 

IX. The Present Tense. 45 

X. The Past Tense . 50 

XI. The Future Tense. 56 

XII. The Compound Tenses. 60 

XIII. The Present Perfect Tense. 64 

XIV. The Past Perfect and Future Perfect Tense . . 69 

XV. Voice. 73 

XVI. Verbs often Confused. 78 

XVII. Use of Capital Letters. 85 

XVIII. Punctuation of the Simple Sentence. 89 

XIX. Group Elements within the Sentence: Phrases . 93 

XX. The Compound Sentence and its Punctuation . . 98 

XXI. Group Elements within the Sentence: Clauses . 106 

XXII. Sequence of Tenses.112 

XXIII. Mood.120 

PART II 

The Study of Words. Spelling. Prefixes.129 

The Study of Words. Spelling. Suffixes.135 

The Study of Words. Spelling and Pronunciation ... 141 

The Dictionary.145 

Letters.149 

List of Composition Topics.155 

Index.157 

vii 





































SENTENCE SENSE AND 
VERB USAGE 


LESSON I 

OUR LANGUAGE 1 

Languages are like the people who speak them. They 
are great, beautiful, and free, if those who speak them 
remain so. They change and grow, or wane and die with 
the nations that produce them. Latin, a language as beauti¬ 
ful and powerful as English, died under the pressure 60 of 
hordes from the north, pouring in upon Rome and her 
colonies. Out of its ashes, however, rose the great Romance 
languages, Italian, French, and Spanish, modifications 
of Latin by the barbarian tribes who tried to learn it. 
Latin became also, if not the parent, the grand-parent of 
English. 

IN 100 BRITAIN 

Shakespeare describes his land as: 

This precious stone, set in the silver sea, 

This blessed spot, this earth, this realm, this England. 

Certainly the little island, washed by the warm waters of 
the Gulf stream until it blossoms like a rose, has been a 
greatly coveted spot. The Celts , 160 ancestors of the Irish, 
held it when its history began. They became and remained 
for four hundred years a part of the Roman Empire. When 

1 Teachers, please see important note at end of lesson before reading. 

I 


2 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


the attacks of the Goths and Vandals threatened her power, 
Rome recalled her legions from Britain, and the island fell a 
prey to another Teutonic 200 tribe, called the Anglo-Saxons. 
These people were so tall and fair that a Roman pope, 
who wanted to convert them to Christianity, said they 
should be called Angels, not Angles. They drove the Celts 
into Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They were a strong, 
noble people who believed in the rights 250 of the indi¬ 
vidual whatever his rank. They lacked, however, a 
sense of humor, which the Celts had, and a strong love of 
beauty. 

Across the Channel, on the mainland, another northern 
tribe had settled a hundred years before, married French 
wives and learned their beautiful language. Already in the 
eleventh 300 century, these Normans had become the most 
cultured people in Europe and were building beautiful 
cathedrals and great feudal castles, and singing songs of 
chivalry. They desired England, and under William the 
Conqueror, in 1066, they got it. They were led to battle 
by a poet who sang the Song Zb0 of Roland as he fought 
and died. 

In this way, romance came back into England. The 
Celts flocked to the Norman court, bringing their songs of 
Arthur. For nearly four hundred years two languages, 
Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, were spoken in England 
side by side, as we see in Ivanhoe . 40 ° But unity of lan¬ 
guage is necessary to the life of a nation, and there came at 
last a writer, Chaucer, who blended the two languages into 
what we now call English. Then the schools began to 
teach this new language, and gradually it became the 
language of all classes. Strength 450 and freedom came 
to it from its Anglo-Saxon parent; beauty and flexibility 
from its Latin or French parent. But one mishap befell it. 
Living on an island, cut off from the rest of Europe, the 


OUR LANGUAGE 


3 


English people in time changed all the names of their 
vowel sounds and lost most 500 of the vowel endings of their 
words. This peculiarity makes it difficult for us to learn 
to pronounce the words of other languages and for 
foreigners to pronounce ours. It is, however, a strong 
language, molded by the struggles of the English for 
liberty and full of their delight in 650 human nature. 


IN AMERICA 

After the discovery of the Western Continent, there was 
a race among European nations to settle it. In North 
America, the English won. Adventurers from the little 
island were more numerous and more vigorous in this part 
of the new world than those from Spain and 600 France. 
They happened, too, to settle in a part of the continent hav¬ 
ing the best climate. Their supremacy made English the 
language of our land. If the French and Indian Wars had 
turned out differently, French might have been our mother 
tongue. Gradually, after the establishment of the United 
States, 650 French and Spanish settlements were absorbed and 
their languages disappeared except in Quebec and [Mexico. 

All European countries have contributed to the settling 
of the United States. Immigration has never ceased. 
Generation after generation has poured in, and only a 
strong democratic government, which early determined 
to educate all of 700 its people, could have made one lan¬ 
guage prevail. Common schools, great dictionaries, news¬ 
papers, railroad and telegraph have combined to make 
us one people with one language. In spite of our great 
expanse, we have fewer dialects than are found in the 
British Isles; and our common language has crossed 
mountain 750 ranges and bridged streams greater than those 
that helped to create different languages in Europe. 


4 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


THE HERITAGE OF OUR LANGUAGE 

There are several reasons why we should be glad that 
English is our inherited language. Our first cause for pride 
is that it is the tongue of a liberty-loving nation. 800 
The spirit of a people lives in and by its language; and 
where English is spoken, the majority rules. Second, 
along with our liberal form of government, we should be 
proud that we have inherited a noble literature. A lan¬ 
guage is made great by its great writers. Men of all 850 
nations study English to read Shakespeare. This great 
literature is still growing; and we should consider our¬ 
selves fortunate that, while we are still a young nation, 
we have had a full-grown literature to delight us. More 
copies of books written by present-day writers in England 
are sold in the 900 United States than in Great Britain 
itself. Our third reason for being glad we speak English 
is that it is spoken by the most numerous and widely 
scattered groups of people on the globe. Our great near¬ 
est neighbor, Canada, speaks English, and a thousand 
miles of border land and water 950 need no forts or navies. 
Those new and most politically advanced nations, Aus¬ 
tralia and New Zealand, both speak English. 

We owe, however, much to other nationalities that have 
enriched our civilization. All European peoples, ancient 
and modern, have made additions to our language. The 
Hebrew Bible and the Greek Testament, 1000 translated 
into noble English about the time the British began to 
settle in America, became the great common book of the 
language. Every one who could read, read the Bible. 
Its strength and simplicity have molded English writing 
and speech. As science grew, it had to find new words 
for 1050 new knowledge and invention; and the scientists 
borrowed or coined words from Greek, Latin, French, and 


OUR LANGUAGE 


5 


German. Diplomacy has added French words; philoso¬ 
phy, German. Music and art have gone to Italy for 
many terms. Contact with the Spanish in Mexico and 
South America has brought in interesting words. Our 
names 1100 we have taken from every language. The love¬ 
liest names of places come from the native Indian tribes. 
Susquehanna , Tonawanda , Kennebec bring pictures of a 
very different America. All these words are English now. 
We do not think of them as alien. 

ENEMIES OF OUR LANGUAGE 

The forces which unify a 1160 language come largely, as 
we have seen, from the written word; the forces which 
divide it come from the spoken word, which has not yet 
bridged space and eliminated local variations. Perhaps 
the telephone and radio will in time overcome dialects. 
At present, standards of speech vary in the different 1200 
parts of the English speaking world. The people who 
speak English most beautifully are those who have time 
for education and pay attention to beauty of sound. 
In England, an ancient aristocracy has preserved the lan¬ 
guage, studying it and using it carefully. Such people cul¬ 
tivate beautiful voices and do not 1250 let their children 
associate with ignorant or careless speakers. In demo¬ 
cratic America, we care more for what we say than the 
way we say it. We are known among other nations for 
our nasal, high voices, our poor enunciation, our careless 
grammar, and our use of slang. 


THE USE OF THE VOICE 

Our speech 1300 is concise, full of energy. We make our¬ 
selves understood, but our way of doing it is not liked or 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


approved. If we wish really to have a great language, 
we must not be content with vigor alone, but must 
strive for beauty. Every nation should have an aristoc¬ 
racy, made up, 1350 not as in England, of ancient families 
and wealth, but of those who love truth and beauty. 

The fact that in New England and in the South the use 
of the voice is better than in other parts of the country 
proves that our faults are not necessary; only, unrecog¬ 
nized. 1400 If we value beauty, we should each one of us 
strive for lower voices, better enunciation, and a more 
careful use of all the vocal organs. A good voice is a 
delight to all who hear it. 

GRAMMAR 

Mistakes in grammar are serious because they divide 
nations locally and socially. 1460 Certain localities develop 
different dialects; mistakes made from lack of education or 
thought build up social classes, in spite of all laws against 
them. Do you know where such expressions as the follow¬ 
ing are heard? 11 Want you there?” “The sugar is all” 
“Being I stood by my grandmother's 1600 house, I extra done 
it” “Did you get to go?” Democracy demands unity of 
language, and it should demand speech, beautiful in sound 
and arrangement. 


SLANG 

The overuse of slang is another characteristic of our 
American speech. Slang originates in so very powerful a 
human instinct that it can never 1660 be eradicated. It is 
an instinct like that of poetry, to say things figuratively; or 
like that of wit, to say things briefly and pithily. We call 
children kids because kids are the most sportive and de- 


OUR LANGUAGE 


7 


lightful of all young animals. We call a girl a peach because 
the soft 1600 contours and coloring of her cheek remind us 
of the lovely fruit. We tell people to heal it because the 
expression suggests the sound of rapidly moving feet. If 
only kind and witty people originated slang, it would all 
be poetry or humor. But much of our slang originates 
in 1660 bad feeling: a desire to get ahead of others, to hurt 
them, to express vulgar, cunning thoughts. Slang lowers 
or degrades; poetry raises or ennobles the object to 
which it is attached. We do not like to be called dopes, 
shrimps, runts, boobs, roughnecks. Because slang becomes 
so quickly stale, each 1700 generation must make its own. 
Trying, through a lifetime, to keep up with new slang, 
would mean never to grow up. Education, time, and asso¬ 
ciation with people of good manners will cure anyone of 
its excessive use. 

Let us be careful not to pride ourselves on knowing a 
great deal 1760 of slang and on using it before those who do 
not understand it, for it may come to mark us as belonging 
to an ill-bred nation or class. Those who come to have 
influence do not talk about their pull. Those who are 
really educated do not call one another 1800 highbrows. All 
really alive girls and boys will use some slang, but those of 
good breeding choose their slang and do not use so much 
of it that they can be understood only by their own bunch. 
The popularity of writers of slang in America is a dangerous 
sign. It 1850 implies that we enjoy sharpness, vulgarity, 
and wit at the expense of others, more than truth, beauty, 
and good feeling. 1870 


Questions: 

1. What languages were the parents of English? 

2. How did we get our words derived from Latin? 


8 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


3. How did the names of our vowels come to be changed? 

4. What contributions have other languages made to English? 

To English in America? 

5. Why should we be glad that English is our mother tongue? 

6. For what is the American voice noted? Do you know any 

people with agreeable voices? 

7. Why should we avoid mistakes in grammar? 

8. Why should we watch our use of slang? 

Remember. — Each American is responsible for the 
beauty of the language of his country. 

Note to Teachers on Preliminary Lesson. — It is suggested 
that teachers use the discussion of “Our Language,” the prelimi¬ 
nary lesson, as a silent reading test. Pupils should find out early 
in the term how rapidly and with what comprehension they read 
in comparison with others in the class. The boy or girl who 
enters high school should read three hundred or more words a 
minute. The words in this lesson are numbered for the purpose 
of using it as a reading test. It contains about 1850 words 
and should be read in about six minutes with two intervals of 
rest. 

To make the test a fair one, it should be given when the pupil 
receives his book. 


Directions for Test 

1. Keep books closed. 

2. Describe the nature and the purpose of the test. 

3. Give out paper on which to note results of the test. 

4. Have pupils enter names on papers. 

5. On signal have books opened to “Our Language” page. 

6. On signal let them begin to read and continue for two 

minutes. 

7. Give signal for stopping and have pupils note word at which 

they stopped. 


OUR LANGUAGE 9 

8. Have pupils count back to the nearest number and put on 

paper the number of words read. Close books. 

9. Repeat process until three scores have been entered on 

papers. 

10. Have pupils add these results and divide by six to obtain 

reading rate per minute. 

11. Collect papers and test comprehension of rapid and slow 

readers by using questions at end of lesson. 

12. Keep this record for future comparison. 


LESSON II 


THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE AND THE 
PARTS OF SPEECH 

1 

In the beginning, human beings were, like animals, 
able to make sounds which expressed feeling but unable to 
form words, which are combinations of sounds that have a 
definite meaning. They must have made sounds which, 
like the bark of a dog, expressed excitement; or, like the 
purr of a cat, contentment; or, like the chatter of monkeys, 
annoyance. Then man must have been what Tennyson 
says he still is: 

An infant crying in the night; 

An infant crying for the light, 

And with no language but a cry. 

2 

These sounds and cries, which we now call interjec¬ 
tions, nature gave to men as she gave them hands. But 
just as they had to invent tools out of stone and wood to 
extend the power of their hands, because they found their 
hands too feeble to conquer the earth and gain from nature 
what they needed; so they had to invent words, tools 
made from sounds, to enable them to understand one an-^. 
other, because the first sounds Oh! Ah! Ow! Ugh! were too 
feeble to make their needs known to one another. 

3 

First, they agreed on names for the things they saw 
about them. The great light in the heavens that made 

10 




ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE AND PARTS OF SPEECH 11 

them see all things, they called the sun; the paler light at 
night, they called the moon. They named trees and stones 
and fruits and birds. They gave names to people about 
them: those who fed their young were father and mother; 
those who were fed were son and daughter. They named, 
too, feelings within them: that which made them tremble 
and run was fear; that which made them forget their fear 
and stirred them to action was courage. At last, they 
named ideas which they learned from living, such as love } 
justice , and truth. 

All these names of people and things, which exist in 
space or in the experience of man, are called nouns, 

4 

It was not enough to name things. Men had to tell 
what happened to things and to themselves, how they 
were related, changed and grew, were born and died. At 
first, they probably told about these changes by means of 
gesture; then, at length, they developed words that showed 
what happened to things in time. Trees grew. Apples 
rotted. Men killed. Tribes hunted. These words which are 
called verbs, differ from nouns in that the experiences that 
they represent take time for their accomplishment. Verbs 
tell what the noun does or what happens to it, or what it is. 
Verbs always say something about a noun. 

These two kinds of words are the most important words 
because with them we can express thoughts. Trees grew. 
Apples rotted. These words make complete thoughts, 
though we have used only nouns and verbs. Indians in 
our language, or anyone in a foreign language, or children 
in all languages use and understand sentences containing 
only nouns and verbs: Chief smokes pipe. Want food. 
Mama spank. 


12 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Much later, the constant repeating of nouns became 
awkward and a set of words grew up called pronouns to 
take their place. It is their business to keep us from re¬ 
peating our own names or the names of persons or things 
we are speaking to or about. It takes a baby a long time 
to learn the use of pronouns, because a baby is a primitive 
being and thinks in pictures. Pronouns take the place of 
names. 

Questions: 

1. How does a baby learn to talk? 

2. What are the limitations of gesture in conveying thought? 

Illustrate. 

3. Can you add other words that were probably used in primitive 

times? 

4. Do you know words in other languages for mother and fathert 

5. What two kinds of words are necessary to make a thought? 

6. Why was it necessary to invent pronouns? 


5 

As the brains and tastes of men developed, they began 
to see distinctions and differences in things of the same 
kind. A ripe apple was different from a green apple. The 
tall, strong tree was a landmark. So, there grew up a class 
of words always attached to nouns to describe or point 
them out. These words are called adjectives, and they are 
always associated with nouns. Adjectives are words that 
modify or change the meaning of nouns. 

In the same way, verbs that showed action were too 
general, and it was necessary to show that they differed 
at different times. The man who ran quickly saved the day. 
The hunter who aimed surely brought home the deer. The 
place and time of action had often to be pointed out. Come 


ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE AND PARTS OF SPEECH 13 

here now. Go there tomorrow. These words that are 
attached to verbs are called adverbs. Adverbs are words 
that modify or make more definite the meaning of the verb 
to which they are attached. Later, adverbs became asso¬ 
ciated also with adjectives or other adverbs to distinguish 
their degree or amount. The sun is very bright. The deer 
ran too quickly. 

6 

Somewhere during the development of language, words 
were needed to connect nouns, verbs, adjectives, and 
adverbs. It saved time to say: The man killed and ate the 
bear , instead of The man killed the bear. The man ate the 
bear. It saved time to say: The bear is under the tree instead 
of You see the tree. The bear is there. Such words as and 
and under in these sentences are called connectives. Con¬ 
nectives are of two kinds: conjunctions and prepositions. 
Conjunctions connect all kinds of words. Prepositions 
connect only the nouns that follow them with some other 
word. 

It is these short connectives, pronouns, and verbs, that 
make modern languages so difficult for foreigners to learn. 
When we know just how to use the verbs, pronouns, and 
connectives in our language, we speak what is called 
idiomatic English. 

Grammar is the study of the way to use these classes 
of words, and its chief use is to help us to speak and to 
write correctly. A knowledge of grammar that is not 
applied is worth little to anyone. Almost all of us make 
mistakes in speaking or writing. The first step in correct¬ 
ing them is to learn our mistakes; the second step is to 
know the right form; the third, to use it until the habit 
is fixed. For ungrammatical speech is a serious handicap 
in business or friendship. 


14 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


7 

The eight classes of words are called parts of speech 
when they are arranged in sentences. Indeed, we cannot 
tell whether a word is a noun or a verb or another part of 
speech until we see it in a sentence. The dictionary classi¬ 
fies it according to its most common use, but we should have 
to make sure of its classification by its use in any particular 
sentence. 

Questions: 

1. What is a noun? A verb? An adjective? An adverb? A 

conjunction? A preposition? 

2. What do adjectives and adverbs do? 

3. What do conjunctions and prepositions do? 

4. How can we learn to correct our mistakes? 

5. How can we tell what part of speech a word is? 

Exercise 1. — Name the part of speech of each word 
according to its most common use and give the reason for 
your classification. Examples: Hal is a noun because it 
names something; true is an adjective because we always 
use it to modify a noun. 

Ouch!, in, God, create, and, darkness, was, good, oh!, the, heaven, 
seventh, said, I, soul, hope, of, life, freely, upon, sat, or, when, 
quickly, truly, ah!, beautiful, sickly. 

Exercise 2. — Use each of the following words in sen¬ 
tences as at least two parts of speech: 

love, base, well, school, own, people, but, after, rich, three. 

Exercise 3. — In the following sentences name the parts 
of speech of the words in italics: 

1. They stoned the man with stones from the stone wall; and 
when they found him, he was stone dead. 


ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE AND PARTS OF SPEECH 15 

2. Although we heard the dismissal bell sound , the boy heard no 

sound because he was sound asleep. 

3. The light , covered by a light green shade, will light the room 

sufficiently. 

Remember. — Nouns are the names of people and 
things which exist in space or in the experience of man; 
verbs tell what happens to nouns; adjectives are always 
associated with nouns and limit or describe them; adverbs 
do the same for verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs; pro¬ 
nouns stand for nouns; conjunctions connect all parts of 
speech; prepositions connect the nouns that follow with 
some other word. 


LESSON III 


INFLECTION 1 

1 

We saw in Lessons I and II that men made words by 
agreeing that certain sounds should stand for certain things. 
They must have soon discovered that these words had to 
be changed to represent the same ideas in different rela¬ 
tions. Warrior which stood for one of a certain kind of 
man would have to change to warriors to represent more 
than one. When words were used in sentences, their rela¬ 
tions to one another had to be shown. Men had to know 
which word the verb was talking about, its subject; and 
which it was acting upon, its object. They had to show 
which noun possessed another noun and which was possessed. 

2 

There are two ways of showing this change of meaning 
or relation that a word undergoes. The first and the one 
used by the older languages is to change the word itself, 
usually by a change in its ending. This is the method we 
used in adding s to make the plural of warrior. If ’s is 
added, the ending would show possession. The warrior's 
spear lies idle. When a word changes in this manner, it is 
said to be inflected. A language in which these changes 
prevail is said to be an inflected language. Ancient Greek 
and Latin were highly inflected languages. 

1 This review lesson because of its condensation offers difficulties 
and should be taken up in class, or used only for reference as need 
arises. It should not be given as an assignment. 

16 


INFLECTION 


17 


The second way to show a change in relation or meaning 
is to add other words such as prepositions, articles, or 
auxiliary verbs and to take great care in the order of words 
in a sentence. Languages that use this method are said 
to be non-inflected languages. English, the least inflected 
of European languages, uses prepositional or verb phrases 
where Latin would use noun or verb endings. We translate 
one Latin word into English by several words. Puellae 
means of the girl. Docebatur means She was being taught. 
In English, possession is often expressed, not by a case 
ending, ’s, but by a prepositional phrase. We may say: 
The spear of the warrior lies idle instead of The warrior’s 
spear lies idle. Order is more important in English than 
in Latin. In the sentences, The bear ate the boy and The 
boy ate the bear, we can know which noun is subject and 
which is object only by position. In Latin, an ending 
would show the subject and object, and position would 
matter very little. Nouns in English have only one change 
for case, the possessive; but pronouns still show by their 
form whether they are subjects or objects of a verb. 

If we had no inflection in English, we should not need 
this lesson; but a few inflected forms have come down 
from earlier languages, and these we must know in order 
to speak and write correctly. We shall take up only the 
regular inflections in this lesson. 

3 

The inflection of the noun is called declension. De¬ 
clension of nouns in English shows change only for number 
and possession. 

DECLENSION OF THE NOUN “GIRL” 

Singular Plural 

Subject and Object Case girl girls 

Possessive Case girl’s girls’ 


18 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


4 

The inflection of the pronoun is called declension. 
Personal pronouns are the most highly inflected forms in 
our language. They change to show person, number, case, 
and, in the third person, gender. The other pronouns are 
simpler; the only important inflected change is in the 
relative pronoun who. 

DECLENSION OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS 
The First Personal Pronoun, or the Speaker 


Singular Plural 

Nominative or Subject Case I we 

Possessive Case my, mine our, ours 

Objective or Object Case me us 


The Second Personal Pronoun, or the Person Spoken To 


Singular and Plural 


Nominative or Subject Case 
Possessive 

Objective or Object Case 

you 

your, yours 
you 


The Third Personal Pronoun, or the Person or Thing Spoken About 


Singular 

Plural 

Masculine Feminine Neuter 

All Genders 

Nominative or Subject Case 
Possessive Case 

Objective or Object Case 

he she it 

his her, hers its 

him her it 

5 

they 

their, theirs 
them 


The inflection of adjectives and adverbs is called 
comparison. Adjectives and adverbs are inflected to show 
degree of modification: positive, comparative, and superla¬ 
tive. They either change the ending or use the inflected 
forms more or most. 


INFLECTION 


19 


Positive 

wise 

quickly 


Comparative 

wiser 

more quickly 


Superlative 

wisest 

most quickly 


6 


The verb is the most difficult word to learn in all 
languages, because it has to express so many kinds of 
relations. First, it must tell the mood of the speaker or 
writer of a sentence. He may be just stating something 
in the indicative mood, He is studying his lessons; or he 
may be commanding in the imperative mood, Study your 
lessons; or he may be telling what he thinks of the truth of 
his statement in the subjunctive mood, I wish he were 
studying his lessons. The verb has therefore to show mood. 
Second, the verb must tell us whether the subject is acting, 
by use of the active voice, He teaches , or being acted upon, 
by use of the passive voice, He is taught. The verb there¬ 
fore must show voice. Third, the verb must show the 
time of whatever it tells about its subject, He went yester¬ 
day. Therefore the verb must show tense or time. Fourth, 
the verb must show, by agreement, the person and the 
number of its subject, She hates cats; I am fond of cats. 
Therefore the verb must show person and number. Lastly, 
the verb has been used as a base to make words that are 
partly verbs and partly nouns, or adjectives, or adverbs. 
These words are called verbals, or participles and infini¬ 
tives. Knowing , known , to know. 

Almost all of these relations that the verb must express 
are shown in English by what we call verb phrases, groups 
of words consisting of pronouns and auxiliary verbs. But 
there are a few changes in the verb itself to indicate person, 
tense, mood, and verbal forms. First, in the third person 
singular of the indicative mood, active voice, we always 
add s, He sees. Second, the past tense is always indicated 


20 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


by a change of the verb itself; ed is the usual ending, He 
loved. Third, the present participles all end in ing, walking, 
and the past participles generally end in ed, walked. The 
infinitive, while not inflected, has a fixed sign in the word 
to which precedes it, to walk. 

The grouping together of all the forms of the verb phrases 
and inflections to show voice, mood, tense, person, number, 
and verbal forms is called the conjugation of the verb. 
The lessons which follow in this book are largely concerned 
with the forms and uses of the verb. 

Questions: 

1. Why did it become necessary to change the forms of words? 

2. What is this change in the forms of words called? 

3. What two kinds of languages can be broadly differentiated? 

4. What is the change in nouns and pronouns called? In adjec¬ 

tives and adverbs? In verbs? 

5. In which part of speech are the changes most marked and 

important? 

6. Which relations of the verb are shown by inflection? 

7. What is meant by conjugation? 

Exercise 1. — Give the declension of (or decline) the 
following nouns, as girl is declined above: boy, man, woman, 
baby, church. 

Exercise 2. — Give the declension of the following pro¬ 
nouns as the personal pronouns are given above: who , 
which. 

Exercise 3. — Give the comparison of the following ad¬ 
jectives and adverbs as above: pretty, great, new , safely , 
easily, simply. 

Exercise 4. — From among the following parts of the 
verb, pick out those that are verb phrases; those that are 
inflected forms; those that are infinitives; and those that 
are participles: to go, I shall go, he went, he will have gone , 


INFLECTION 


21 


going, to have gone, he goes; done, I did, doing, to do, she 
does, he has done; I saw, I have been seen, seeing, seen, to 
have been seen, he sees. 

Remember. — Though English is not an inflected lan¬ 
guage, it has a few inflections which must be learned. 


LESSON IV 

THE SENTENCE — SUBJECT AND PREDICATE 
1 

All of us think. We must think in words. When 
these words are so arranged that they make an intelligible, 
complete thought, we have what is called a sentence. The 
natural order in English is to begin with an idea and then 
say something about it. Cats (idea) have long tails (a 
statement about cats). 

A thought, therefore, is made up of two parts: the idea 
we start with (the noun), and what we say about it (the 
verb). The idea we start with is called the subject, and 
what we say about it is called the predicate: Bessie (sub¬ 
ject) cried (predicate). 

We think in sentences because it is the law of the mind; 
just as we can bend the arm only at the elbow because 
that is a law of the body. 

2 

Every subject must contain a noun or pronoun, which 
we call the subject noun or pronoun; and every predicate 
must contain a verb, which we call the predicate verb. 
But the complete subject is the subject noun or pronoun 
including all the words accompanying it to give the idea or 
picture with which we begin; the complete predicate is the 
predicate verb and all the words associated with it that 
tell something of the subject. The cat that has howled all 
this week. .. . Here we have only a picture or idea; we feel 
a certain amount of suspense; the question in our mind is: 
“ Well, what about this cat that has howled all this week? ” 

22 


THE SENTENCE — SUBJECT AND PREDICATE 23 


As it stands, it is not a complete thought; it is not a 
sentence .... died last night. We feel better. The suspense 
is over. We know what has happened to the cat. We have 
a predicate; we have a complete thought; we have a 
sentence. A sentence must make sense, but it need not 
tell a fact. The moon is made of green cheese is a sentence 
but not a fact. 

Exercise 1. — Pick out the subject noun and the predicate 
verb as well as the complete subject and the complete 
predicate: 

1. Archimedes was a Greek scientist. 

2. He was a native of Syracuse. 

3. While he was taking a bath one day, he discovered how to 

test specific gravity. 

4. He discovered that a floating body, immersed in water, dis¬ 

placed its own weight in water. 

5. Shouting “Eureka,” he ran through the streets. 

6. Eureka means in Greek, “I have found it.” 

7. The principle of the lever was also discovered by him. 

8. ‘‘Give me a place to stand on,” he said, “and I will move 

the world.” 

9. His scientific discoveries also helped him to protect his native 

city in time of war. 

10. After the siege, he was killed by a common soldier. 

Exercise 2. — Although the subject generally precedes 
the predicate, in interrogative sentences the order is usually 
changed. The subject is then inserted between parts of the 
predicate. 

1. When did Galileo live? 

2. Where was the principle of the pendulum discovered? 

3. How did Galileo time the swinging of the chandelier? 

4. What astronomical discoveries did Galileo make? 

5. Did the people of his time reward him for his many discoveries? 

6. Were people opposed to scientists in the Middle Ages? 


24 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Exercise 3. — Sometimes we wish to invert the subject 
to avoid an awkward expression or to make the subject 
emphatic. To do this we use words called expletives which 
fill in the place usually occupied by the subject. These 
expletives are there and it, and when so used, they have 
no meaning, but serve only to allow us to invert the subject. 

1. There are many kinds of great leaders. 

2. There are those who lead in war. 

3. It is necessary to have leaders in peace. 

4. In the first class there are men like Washington and Wellington. 

5. There are others like Pericles, Augustus, and Queen Elizabeth. 

Exercise 4. — Sometimes it is possible to supply omitted 
parts of the sentence from its use in a certain context. 
This is especially true in conversation. Fill in all the words 
that are left out in the following sentences: 

“Go!” 

“Where?” 

“To the principal’s office.” 

“When?” 

“At once!” 

“Now?” 

“At once!!” 

Exercise 5. — What part of speech is each of the words 
in the preceding exercise? 

Questions: 

1. What is a sentence. 

2. What two parts must every sentence have? 

3. What two parts of speech are most important? Why? 

4. How can we tell by reading aloud that we have a complete 

sentence? 

5. When do we put the subject between parts of the verb? When 

after the verb? 


THE SENTENCE — SUBJECT AND PREDICATE 25 


6. What words do we use to take the place of the subject when 

we wish to put the subject out of its natural order? 

7. When may the subject or predicate or both be omitted? 

Remember . —We must be able to find the subject noun 
and the predicate verb of every sentence. If they are not 
expressed, they are implied. 


LESSON V 

TYPES OF SENTENCES AND THEIR PUNCTUATION 

When we speak, we are usually stating our thoughts: 
John is happy. After such statements, we drop our voices 
to show that the thought is complete. When we write such 
a thought, we place a period at the end to indicate that the 
voice is dropped, the thought, complete. Such sentences 
are called declarative sentences. 

However, as we have seen in Lesson IV, the predicate 
does not always tell something about the subject, but may 
ask something about it. Is John happy t At the end of 
such sentences, we place a question mark; and, in speaking, 
we sometimes keep our voices up. These sentences are 
called interrogative sentences. 

There is still a third kind of sentence, one that neither 
makes a statement nor asks a question, but expresses feeling 
by its form. How happy John is! Lucky John! In many 
cases, these sentences lack a complete subject and predicate, 
and the thought must be found in the feeling. At the end 
of such sentences we place an exclamation mark or point. 
We speak or read these sentences with a certain feeling 
that makes the voice rise and fall. These sentences are 
called exclamatory sentences. (See Lesson IV., Exercise 5.) 

Exercise 1. — Place the proper punctuation after the 
following sentences: 

“The dog has gone ” 

“Where is he ” 

“Heaven knows ” 

“Shall I look for him ” 

26 


TYPES AND PUNCTUATION OF SENTENCES 27 


“Yes, but I shall lose you ” 

“You won’t, if you stay here ” 

“All right ” 

“I’ll hurry ” 

“What if you don’t find him ” 

“Oh, I wifi ” 

“He is probably chasing a cat ” 

“There he is ” 

“After that old lady’s cat ” 

“Shall I beat him ” 

“No ” 

Exercise 2. — In the following groups of words, pick out 
those which make complete sentences, and put a period, 
a question mark, or an exclamation mark after each of them. 

1. How I learned to swim 

2. King Cole was a .merry old soul 

3. Where shall I see you 

4. Although he is poor 

5. The man who came here last night 

6. How I like skating 

7. A class made up of bright boys 

8. Who would like to go 

9. How do you know 

10. I know who he is 

11. The girl that I saw is the prize winner 

12. How shall we get there 

13. Oh, how glad I am 

14. There being no choice 

15. To do a good deed each day 

16. Swimming swiftly towards me 

17. To be or not to be 

Exercise 3. — By adding an omitted part, make complete 
sentences of the groups of words in Exercise 2 after which 
you could not place a period, question mark, or exclamation 
mark. 


28 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Exercise 4. — Put periods in the following groups of 
words. They now look like only one sentence, because a 
comma is put where a full stop should occur. 

1. I entered the room, as the maid was dusting, I turned to go 

out again. 

2. We shall never buy anything in that store again, the salesman 

is always trying to sell us things we do not want. 

3. Our team won the football game, with only one moment left 

to play, our star quarterback ran seventy yards to a touch¬ 
down. 

4. The man was very tall, on his head he wore a high silk hat 

which added to his height. 

(Do not mark the exercises in this book with any 
punctuation!) 

Exercise 5. — Read the following exercise aloud at home. 
In class you will be asked to write it out. Be sure, where 
you naturally dropped your voice, to place a period; where 
a question was asked, to put a question mark; where 
strong feeling was shown, to put an exclamation mark; and 
whenever you use any of these punctuation marks to begin 
the next word with a capital letter: 

CLIVE 

{Adapted from Robert Browning’s poem) 

When General Clive was a young man of twenty-five, he worked 
as a bookkeeper for an East Indian firm one evening, he was 
honored by an invitation to play cards with a party of young 
army officers of the Queen a captain, whose name has never been 
told, sat next to him as he passed the cards to Clive, he said, 
“Cut” Clive rose and said quietly, “Is that a new way to cut 
cards you kept back a card when you handed them to me you 
cheated” the other' officers immediately jumped to their feet 
amazed that one of their number had been accused of cheating 
to settle the difficulty at once and uphold the honor of the army, 


TYPES AND PUNCTUATION OF SENTENCES 29 


a duel was arranged with pistols at ten paces as Clive and the 
captain stood facing each other, Clive’s pistol accidentally ex¬ 
ploded missing the captain by a foot it was now the captain’s 
privilege to shoot at Clive from where he pleased he strode over to 
the young man deliberately and held the pistol to his temple 
exclaiming, “What was that you said to me” “Captain,” re¬ 
plied Clive slowly and steadily, “before you gave me those cards, 
you took one out of the pack you cheated ” the captain lowered 
his hand and then raised it again, as if to fire again his hand 
dropped, and he exclaimed, “You have the devil and God on 
your side, and I can’t fight the three of you I did cheat ” then 
he rushed out of the room for a moment, the officers remained 
speechless then one of them shouted, “Get after him he’ll never 
hear the last of this he cheated” “Hold on” Clive stood there 
blocking the way “You didn’t think him a cheat a minute ago, 
did you yet he was just as much a cheat then you were willing to 
see me murdered did you try to find out whether my accusation 
was just no that man treated me more fairly than you have ” 
Clive looked about the room and when he had made a mental 
note of those present, he concluded, “If any one of you in this 
room ever breathes a word against the captain, I promise not to 
be as charitable to you as he was to me ” 

Questions: 

1. What three kinds of sentences are there? 

2. How can we tell them apart on the printed page? How, when 

they are spoken? 

3. How can we make sure we have a complete sentence? 

4. How can we make sure we have only one? 

Remember. — We must put full stop punctuation (. ?!) 
only after a complete sentence and always after a complete 
sentence. 


LESSON VI 


KINDS OF VERBS 
1 

In Lesson I, we found that the second class of words 
that men needed were verbs, words which tell something of 
nouns. Such words may tell what the subject does: The 
hoy sings; they may tell what the subject does to some 
other noun: The hoy sang the song; or they may merely 
describe the subject: The hoy is a good singer. 

Verbs, then, divide themselves according to use into 
three kinds: 


2 

First, there is the class of verbs that by themselves can 
complete the assertion concerning the subject. The apple 
fell. John ran. The poet mused. God is. Such verbs 
which complete the meaning of the sentence in this way 
are called intransitive. If you look at the examples, you 
see that the verbs may or may not show action and that 
the verb is, in the sentence God is, means exists. Only ad¬ 
verbial modifiers accompany such verbs in the predicate 
of the sentence. The apple fell to the ground. John ran 
quickly. The poet mused in solitude. God is forever 
and ever. 

3 

The second class comprises those verbs which show ac¬ 
tion upon another noun. They need a noun to receive 
their action before they can make a complete assertion. 

30 


KINDS OF VERBS 


31 


John ate the apple. The poet wrote a poem. John did his 
work. The noun that receives the action is called the 
direct object of the verb. The objects of the verbs in the 
sentences given are in their order apple, poem, work. When 
the object is a pronoun, we must be sure to use the object 
form of the pronoun. (See Lesson III, paragraph 5.) He 
saw Jack and me. This second class of verbs is called 
transitive from the Latin “to go over,” because the action 
goes over from the subject to the object. We see, now, 
why the first class of verbs was called intransitive. 

4 

The third class includes those verbs that do not represent 
action, but show only the connection or the relation of the 
subject noun with another noun or adjective in the predi¬ 
cate. The complete predicate in this case does not tell 
what the noun does, but simply describes it. The apple 
is a pippin. John is a gentleman. The poet is a maker 
of joy. These verbs are called copulative because they 
couple or join the subject noun with a predicate noun or 
adjective. Any verb which means much the same as is 
may be called copulative. The apple tastes good. John 
appears a gentleman. The poet becomes the leader. We call 
the noun or adjective that completes the meaning of the 
copulative verb, the predicate noun or predicate adjective. 
When the predicate nominative is a pronoun, we must be 
careful to use the subject or nominative form of the pro¬ 
noun. (See Lesson III, paragraph 5.) It is I. It is they. 

5 

Whenever the verb does not complete the assertion about 
the subject, we have what we call a complement of the verb. 
Each kind of verb differs in its complement. The intransi¬ 
tive verb takes none, often using an adverbial modifier to 


32 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


complete the predicate. The transitive verb demands a 
noun as object. The copulative verb demands a predicate 
noun or adjective. The hoy went out of the room. Mary 
likes cats. He is a good pitcher. 

Questions: 

1. What three kinds of verbs are there? 

2. W T hat is a complement of a verb? 

3. How do the complete predicates of each of the three kinds of 

verbs differ? 

4. Why is a verb that may complete the predicate by itself 

called intransitive? 

Exercise 1. — Pick out from the following sentences the 
transitive, intransitive, and copulative verbs, and give the 
objects of all the transitive verbs: 

1. He seems a very intelligent lad and proves my theory that 

early training counts. 

2. The taster of tea tastes each brand quickly and knows the 

value, but to me, cheap and expensive tea taste equally good. 

3. The dog runs about and smells the road closely for the trail of 

his master. He has found it at last and trots off rapidly. 

4. The flowers smell very sweet when the sun first comes out. 

5. “When I become a man, I shall choose an occupation that 
1ji> gives joy as well as money,” said the boy. 

6. I do not feel well to-day; but I shall not stop work, for it 

would only grow heavier to-morrow. 

7. It is I! It is he. It is they. Suppose I become you, and you 

become I for the evening. I feel well. 

Exercise 2. — Write three sentences in which you use 
three copulative verbs for which you can supply part of the 
verb to he. Use a predicate noun or adjective. 

Exercise 3. — Write three sentences in which three transi¬ 
tive verbs take nouns as direct objects. 

Exercise 4. — Write three in which you use intransitive 


KINDS OF VERBS 33 

verbs with or without an adverbial modifier. Let one of 
them be a part of the verb to be, meaning to exist. 

Exercise 5. — Use the verbs feel, grow, turn as all three 
kinds of verbs. 

Mistakes to be avoided. — 1. Do not use a verb indis¬ 
criminately as transitive or intransitive if its meaning does 
not permit. Correct the following sentences: 

He graduated elementary school. 

He lays down. 

They operated him for appendicitis. 

2. Never use an adjective in the complement of a transi¬ 
tive or intransitive verb. Correct the following sentences: 

He did his work very good. 

He dresses bad and eats quick. 

3. Never use an adverb as a complement of a copulative 
verb. Correct the following sentences: 

The apples taste deliciously. 

The flowers smell sweetly. 

4. Never use the subject or nominative case of the 
pronoun as the object of a transitive verb. Correct the 
following sentences: 

Come to see mother and I. 

They wouldn’t notice Jack and I. 

5. Never use the object or objective case of the pronoun 
as a predicate nominative after a copulative verb. Correct 
the following sentences: 

It is me. 

It is them. 


34 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Exercise 6. — Pick out and name each kind of verb in 
the following selection. Note the complements of each 
verb: 

ROBIN HOOD 

Robin Hood is one of the most likable characters in history. 
He and his merry men, among whom were Friar Tuck, Allan-a- 
Dale, Will Scarlet, and Little John, lived in Sherwood Forest. 
There they performed their many feats of skill, and robbed the 
rich that they might give to the poor. Although they were out¬ 
laws, we admire them for their courage and loyalty. 

In all England there was no better bowman than Robin Hood. 
When the arrow flew from his bow, it sped directly towards its 
mark. There were few better boxers than Friar Tuck. Only 
King Richard ever sent him reeling from a blow. As for using a 
staff and breaking pates and crowns, where was there another 
like Little John? We all remember the thrilling fight on the 
bridge between Robin Hood and Little John. 

And they were loyal to one another at all times! Little John 
was with Robin Hood when he lay dying. Can we ever forget 
that last picture? Robin Hood is almost choked with his own 
breath. “Get me my bow and arrow, Little John,’' he begs feebly. 
Without a word, Little John brings them to him. “Where this 
arrow drops, there bury me,” whispers Robin Hood as Little 
John lifts his head. He bends the bow back weakly; the arrow 
barely rises, and falls several feet away. Robin Hood lays down 
his bow forever. “Well drawn, Robin,” says Little John, tears in 
his eyes. There is a smile on Robin Hood’s face, a smile of tri¬ 
umph and hope. His last arrow, too, has hit its mark. 

Remember. — Transitive verbs are the only verbs that 
take an object. 


LESSON VII 

PERSON AND NUMBER 
1 

Number. — We have seen that nouns are inflected to 
show slight changes of meaning or relationship. A noun 
may stand for one thing or it may stand for more than one. 
If it stands for one, we say it is singular. If it stands for 
two or more, we usually add s to show the change and 
call it plural. Nouns and pronouns take their number 
from the thing or things for which they stand. But verbs 
do not stand for anything singular or plural; they only 
tell something about their subject nouns or pronouns. A 
verb is, therefore, singular or plural only as its subject is 
singular or plural. The verb agrees with its subject in 
number. The boy knows his lesson. The boys know their 
lessons. 

2 

Person. — Let us suppose a class is studying a stanza 
of poetry in a race to see which one can learn it first. One 
member says, ‘7 am ready.” The teacher asks in surprise, 
“ You are? ” The boy begins to recite and breaks down, 
and another boy says, “ He isn’t so bright as he thinks.” 
Note that in each remark the same boy is the subject of 
the sentence. In the first he is I because he is talking; in 
the second, he is you because the teacher is talking to him; 
in the third, he is he because the other boy is talking to the 
teacher about him. This change of pronoun to denote a 
person under different circumstances, as speaking, spoken 

35 


36 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


to, or spoken about, is called person. A verb is in the first 
person when its subject is I or we, in the second person 
when its subject is you and in the third person when its 
subject is he, she, it, or they . (Note that it and they may 
stand for things, so that person does not mean a 'person.) 

All nouns (unless accompanied by pronouns in the first 
or second person) are in the third person because they are 
talked about in the sentence. 


3 

If we note the sentences, I am ready, You aref, and He 
isn’t, we see that the verb has changed with each person. 

In other words, the verb takes its person as well as its 
number from the subject, or, the verb must agree in person 
and number with its subject. 


Singular Plural 

First Person I am we are 

Second Person you are you are 

Third Person he (she, it) is they are 


FINITE PARTS OF THE VERB 

Since the verb changes for person and number and is 
dependent upon the subject for these changes, we call it 
limited or finite. The only parts of the verb which are 
not limited to person and number are infinitives and parti¬ 
ciples. They are not truly verbs because they cannot 
make a statement about a noun. A sentence must contain 
a finite part of the verb. 


Exercise 1. — Pick out the person and the number of 
subjects and verbs in the following story: 


PERSON AND NUMBER 


37 


THE TORTOISE 

Do you know how all the animals were almost burned to death? 
We all know the story of how the tortoise beat the hare. But 
Lord Dunsany tells the consequences of that race. 

One summer day, a fire broke out in the forest. The animals 
needed help to put it out. “We must get word to our neighbors,” 
said the king of the animals. “Whom shall we send?” “The 
one who won the race, — the tortoise,” shouted his subjects. 
The tortoise poked his head out of the shell: “I will go, if you 
wish, since I have proved the swiftest of the animals.” The hare 
looked doubtful and said, “Are you sure? I am wide awake 
to-day.” But the words of the hare were lost in the mighty shout 
that went up as the turtle set forth on its errand. This is the 
reason the animals were almost burned to death. 

1 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — There are several mistakes 
made in agreement of verb with subject by illiterate people: 
the corruption of am not into ain’t, the use of you was for 
you were, of he don’t for he doesn’t and youse for the plural 
of you. They must be avoided. 

Exercise 2. — Correct the mistakes in the conversation 
which follows. Two ragamuffins are quarreling over a 
cigarette stub they have just picked up from the gutter: 

“It ain’t yours!” 

“It ain’t, ain’t it? Why not?” 

“Was you looking when I spied it?” 

“It don’t make no difference. This is my smoke.” 

“Go on! Youse can’t smoke; you ain’t old enough. And 
anyhow there’s germs on it.” 


2 

There are other mistakes that are less illiterate but fre¬ 
quently made. We must take care to note the number of 


38 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE v 


the subject when it follows the verb is and the expletive 
there. Wef should say: There are three reasons. There are 
women and children in the theater. We must be careful in 
noting the agreement, too, when the subject is separated 
from the predicate by modifiers. We should say: Every 
one of the boys was there. The number of students in the 
college is great. 

3 

When a compound subject is joined by and , it takes a 
plural verb. John and his brother were here. If, however, 
the subject is distributed by either and or or neither and 
nor, the verb is in the singular. Either John or his brother 
was here. Neither John nor his brother was here. 

Exercise 3. — Rewrite the following paragraph correcting 
all mistakes in agreement: 

The trouble with business methods are that a man who tell 
the truth at home don’t always think he should be honest in 
business. There’s several reasons for this. The man or his com¬ 
petitor are inclined to think that the other is cheating. This 
suspicion and fear justifies both in making a fact of things they 
only feared were true. 

Questions: 

1. How do nouns get their number? 

2. How do verbs get their number? 

3. How do we determine the person of the subject noun? 

4. How do we determine the person of the predicate verb? 

5. Why do we call verbs when they are used as predicates, finite 

verbs? 

6. What forms of the verb are not finite? 

Remember. — A verb takes its person and number from 
the subject noun or pronoun, and it must agree with it in 
person and in number. 


TIME 


39 


TIME 

Where lies the land to which the ship would go? 
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. 

And where the land she travels from? Away 
Far, far behind, is all that they can say. 

On sunny noon upon the deck’s smooth face, 
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace; 
Or, o’er the stern reclining, watch below 
The foaming wake far widening as we go. 

On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, 
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave! 
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast 
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past. 


Where lies the land to which the ship would go? 
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. 

And where the land she travels from? Away 
Far, far behind, is all that they can say. 


— Arthur Hugh Clough 


LESSON VIII 


TIME AND THE SIMPLE TENSES 
1 

Three Kinds of Time. — If we wish to understand 
time, we may think of it as a great river, broad as the ocean, 
rolling on and on, coming we know not whence, going we 
know not where. We are on a raft in this vast expanse, 
ever moving with it. Wherever the raft is, is now. It 
may be a brief now or a long now. The raft itself is this 
instant; we look a little about us and call the time to-day; 
we look as far back and forward as we can and call it our 
generation; we take out our binoculars and call it the present 
age. The sea is calm. The voyage is long. 

But if we look only back, we call our view or memory 
the past. Whether we are bringing to sight some particular 
event hundreds of years ago, or only yesterday, both are, 
for us now, the past. Hundreds of years ago on the same 
sea that we sail now, Columbus discovered America. Yester¬ 
day, we were almost upset in a storm. 

Or we may look forward and speak only of what we 
expect to see — the future. To-morrow, we shall have fair 
weather. Next year, we shall be in a new country, and we 
shall meet our Pilot face to face. 

Questions: 

1. Why do we call the raft now? 

2. What is the difference between a brief now and a long now? 

3. What are the three kinds of time? 

40 


TIME 


41 


Exercise. — Make three lists in which you give the words 
or expressions which represent: first, the present; second, 
the past; and third, the future; words like: now , yesterday , 
to-morrow. 


2 

Verbs Show Time. — Verbs are words which show 
this flow of time and the changes that occur in it. Verbs 
usually express action or thought, because action and 
thought always take time. Nouns represent things or ideas 
which we think of as timeless. The ship was on the horizon 
yesterday. The ship is close to us now. The ship will be 
out of sight to-morrow. The idea of the ship, the noun, is 
thought of as one thing unchanging; the changes which the 
verb tells about it are expressed by three different forms of 
the same verb because they express changes that happen 
at three different times. If you look at the picture you 
will find other examples. 


3 

Many Events Happen in the Same Time. — Usually 
we think of time from the point of view of the present and 
of ourselves as the center of the events which happen to or 
about us. But the present is full of happenings to other 
people and in other places. Our ocean is broad, and there 
are many craft upon it, some of which we can see, others 
we cannot. At any one definite time we may select, millions 
of events are occurring in the universe. While we are 
reading these words, others are studying Spanish or French; 
some are working in factories; others are killing one an¬ 
other in Africa; the Chinese are asleep; the Italians are 
singing beautiful songs at the opera; the English are making 
great laws. Every point of time, past or present, has this 


42 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


aspect. If we take October 12, 1492, we think at once 
that then Columbus was discovering the New Hemisphere; 
but in England, Henry VII was reigning; in Spain, Ferdi¬ 
nand and Isabella; a serf was tilling the soil in France; 
Russia was chafing under Mongolian rule; ships laden with 
spices and silks were drawing their cargoes through Indian 
seas. Time and place are always associated with anything 
that happens. 1 


4 

A Picture of Time. — Let us look at the picture which 
represents time as we have talked of it. It is a river moving 
from the past to the future. If we take a cross section of 
this river or ocean, we see that each ripple represents an 
event or time in a different place. Our first cross section 
represents a definite time in the past, 1492; our second, 
now; our third, a definite time in the future — 2000. Note 
the form of the verb in each sentence, and note that the 
word now, or in 1492, or in 2000 should precede or follow 
each sentence. 

If you look at the picture from left to right, you see 
that, in each of the first sentences of the different times, 

1 A time and a place are necessary for all definite happenings in 
our world. If you wish to make an appointment to meet a friend 
to-morrow, you must give the place as well as the time. Again, times 
of day are different in different places. When it is 10 a.m. in New 
York, it is nearly three o’clock in London. If you have read “ Around 
the World in Eighty Days,” you will remember that it was by this 
difference of time in different places that Phineas Fogg won his wager. 
So closely are time and place connected that some names of places 
call up their dates. Hastings means 1066, when the Normans came 
to England; Lexington means 1775, when our Revolution began; 
Waterloo means 1815, the defeat of Napoleon and the end of the 
French Revolution. 


TIME 


43 



Read Each Sentence with the Time Below It 








44 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


the same verb with a different form is used. This change 
in the verb to show time is called tense. We have three 
simple tenses — the present, the past, and the future. 

Questions: 

1. What is the chief difference between verbs and nouns? 

2. What is tense? 

3. What are the three simple tenses? 

4. How do we use adverbs to fix the tense of verbs? 

A STORY OF TIME 

There is a story of Roger Bacon which shows the meaning of 
tenses. Although he was a monk living in England in the thir¬ 
teenth century, he was a scientist and made many experiments 
which ignorant people could not understand. They came, there¬ 
fore, to think of him as in league with the devil and as trying to 
do impossible things; things which no One could do at that time, 
nor can do now. It was said that he had constructed a bronze 
head that he expected to speak at a certain time. For six days 
and nights he watched for the event without sleep. At last he 
had to tell his stupid apprentice to take his place that he might 
sleep. He left the boy with instructions to awaken him at the 
first sign of movement in the head. The boy sat motionless before 
the image. Suddenly it opened its mouth and uttered, Time 
will be. The brass lips closed. But the boy sat still, open- 
mouthed. Again the brass lips moved: Time is! Still the 
apprentice waited dumbfounded., A third time the lips moved 
and said, Time was. Then the boy called his master. Too 
late! The head never spoke again. But Roger Bacon, whose head 
was made of something better than metal, spoke many times 
afterward. 

Exercise 1. — Name the simple tenses of the verbs in the 
preceding story. 


TIME 


45 


Exercise 2. — Name the tenses of the following verbs: 

saw, will go, drank, did, sees, wills, am, stole, lays, lay, robbed, 
will bring, takes, shall lose, lost, hurt, hurts, thinks, come, let, 
will leave, burst, spilled. 

Remember . — There are three kinds of time and three 
simple tenses that represent them. In writing or speaking, 
we cannot change from one tense to another without a 
definite reason for doing so. 


LESSON IX 

THE PRESENT TENSE; ITS FORMS AND USES 

In English, the simple tenses (the present, the past, and 
the future) have three forms: the regular form; the pro¬ 
gressive ; and the emphatic. As we see from their names, 
the regular form is the form of the verb itself; the progres¬ 
sive form represents the time as going on or in progress; 
the emphatic form simply makes the statement about the 
subject stronger. 


THE FORM OF THE PRESENT 


Regular 
I carry 
you carry 
he, she, it carries 
we carry 
you carry 
they carry 


Progressive 
I am carrying 
you are carrying 
he, she, it is carrying 
we are carrying 
you are carrying 
they are carrying 


Emphatic 

I do carry 
you do carry 
he, she, it does carry 
we do carry 
you do carry 
they do carry 


Whenever you have occasion to use the present tense, 
you must be careful to see that the verb agrees in person 
and number with its subject. (See Lesson VII.) If you 
examine the conjugation of the three forms of the present 
tense, you will notice that the pronoun of the third person 
singular requires a form of the verb which is different from 
the others; it is the verb form that ends in s. 

If the subject is in the third person singular, you 
must use the third person singular form of the verb: 
studies, is , or does . If the subject is plural, you must not 
use this form. You should use: study, are , or do. 

46 


PRESENT TENSE; ITS FORMS AND USES 


47 


THE USE OF THE PRESENT 

To understand the use of the regular and the progressive 
forms of the present, we must return to our figure of the 
raft in mid-ocean. (See page 43.) In general, the present 
progressive represents the brief now, the now that is going 
on just as the raft is moving on; the regular present repre¬ 
sents the larger nows of to-day, this year, this generation, 
this century or the now of all time. Study the examples 
which the diagram illustrates. 



1. I am studying now. \ (Present progressive — now going on. 
They are fighting now. / See A.) 

2. I walk to school. (Regular present — larger now. See B.) 













48 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


3. This is the century of invention. (Regular present — larger 

now. See C.) 

4. Honesty is the best policy. (Regular present — the now of all 

time. See D.) 

After studying the diagram, we may note the following 
uses of the different forms of the present: 

I. The regular form — I carry, he sees, etc. 

A. It may refer to a limited or definite now. / see it 
now. He is here now. 

B. It may refer to a present that extends over a con¬ 
siderable time and represents habitual action or feeling or 
attitude of mind. I walk to school. I love my mother. I 
never quit. 

C. It may represent the widest, or all-inclusive circle in 
the diagram, and state a truth that is general and true in 
all time. A straight line is the shortest distance between two 
points. Nothing in the universe is ever lost. 

D. The fourth use is idiomatic, or peculiar to English. 
It is the use of the present to represent something that 
will happen in the future. I leave in an hour. If he comes 
to-morrow, I shall be happy. 

E. A rare use of the present is called the historical 
present because it is used of past actions to make them 
seem vivid. He runs up the hill; wraps the flag about him; 
and calls to his comrades!! 

II. The progressive form of the present. — is carrying, 

is seeing, etc. 

A. It represents the action as going on or in progress. 
It is, therefore, the tense we use most often in conversation. 
It is translated into other languages by the simple present. 
I am doing my home-work. What is the dog eating? 

E. Like the regular present it, too, may be used for the 


PRESENT TENSE; ITS FORMS AND USES 49 

immediate future. It should be translated into other lan¬ 
guages by the future tense. I am leaving on the 5:15. 

III. The emphatic form of the present. — does carry, does 
see, etc. 

A. This form is used for emphatic assertions, as its name 
implies. I do study. I do tell the truth. 

B. It is used idiomatically in questions in order to em¬ 
phasize the verb and change the position of the subject. 
The answer to the question will then be emphatic. Do 
you love your mothert Of course I do. 

C. It is used idiomatically in making denials or negative 
assertions. I don’t know what you mean. 1 do not neglect 
my home work. In English, when making a denial or a 
negative assertion, only one negative word should be used. 
It is wrong to say I don’t know nothing about it. We say 
I know nothing about it or I don’t know anything about it. 

Questions: 

1. What are the three forms of the simple tenses? 

2. Why is the regular form of the present tense used in geometri¬ 

cal problems, scientific laws, and proverbs? 

3. Under what circumstances only should the historical present 

be used? 

4. Why do we use the progressive form of the present more often 

in conversation? 

5. What is the idiomatic use of the regular and progressive forms 

of the present? 

Exercise 1. —Write out the present of the verbs: have, 
to, and go, in the three forms. 

Exercise 2. — Show by placing an adverb with each of 
the forms that follow, what use of the present is intended. 
Name use and form of each verb. 


50 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


1. He is there-. 

2. I am brushing my hair-. 

3. I do study-. 

4. He doesn’t know his lesson-. 

5. I am going to Europe-. 

6. Honesty is-the best policy. 

7. Water-runs up hill. 

8. He goes to the store-. 

9. He leaves without fail-. 

10. Do you see the bird-? 

Exercise 3. — Correct the following illiterate expressions: 

1. I see him only yesterday. 

2. He come to school late yesterday. 

3. He pick up his hat and walk out. 

4. I walks up to him and says, “Don’t he know no better?” 

Remember . — You should be able to give a reason for 
every use of the present tense. 


LESSON X 

THE PAST TENSE 


THE FORMS OF THE PAST 


Regular 
I carried 
you carried 
he, she, it carried 
we carried 
you carried 
they carried 


Progressive 
I was carrying 
you were carrying 
he, she, it was carrying 
we were carrying 
you were carrying 
they were carrying 


Emphatic 
I did carry 
you did carry 
he, she, it did carry 
we did carry 
you did carry 
they did carry 


Regular and Irregular Verbs. — If you look at the con¬ 
jugation of the regular form you see that we have here an 
inflectional change, a change made by adding something to 
the verb itself. We add ed to the regular present form, 
carry. The other two forms are expressed by verb phrases. 

The usual sign of the past is the addition of ed to the 
present. I look, I looked ; I hunt, I hunted ; I visit, I 
visited ; 1 talk, 1 talked . Verbs which add ed are called 
regular verbs. 

Other verbs change their form more completely to indi¬ 
cate the past tense. Some of them change the central 
vowel: / come, I came; we break, we broke; he knows, he 
knew. Still others make a more complete change: I am, 
/was; 1 go, I went; I teach, 1 taught. Verbs in a third 
group do not change at all for the past tense: I hit, I hit; 
I hurt, I hurt; it burst, it burst. All such verbs are called 
irregular verbs. 

All we need to remember here is that verbs usually change 
in the past and that we must know the particular change 
in each verb. You have often heard little children say, 

51 


52 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


“I teached my dolly” or “I knowed it” or “I hurted 
myself.” Older people use the wrong form of the past 
because the right form is difficult to remember, saying, “I 
come late” for “I came late,” “I seen him ” for “I saw 
him,” “I done my work yesterday” for “I did my work 
yesterday.” 

Exercise 1. — Make the past tense of the following verbs: 

do, be, write, read, lay, lie, steal, rob, know, speak, pay, 
say, rise, wake, beat, hurt, let. 

THE USES OF THE PAST 

1 

The principal use of the past tense is to tell of a 
definite action in past time, an action that happened at a 
certain definite time. 

Shakespeare was born April 23, 1554. 

Columbus discovered America in 1492. 

I saw him yesterday. 

This is the only tense that can be used correctly to denote 
such an action. It is the tense of history and fiction, which 
tell of actions that happened at some definite time in the 
past. 

In the sentences given as examples, the dates 1554 , 1492 , 
and yesterday place the action at a definite time in the 
past ; and, therefore, the only tense permissible is the past. 

2 

The past tense is also occasionally used to indicate an 
extent of time entirely past. I lived in New York for ten 
years. This use really conforms to definite time as we 
imply the time at which the extent of time was completed. 


THE PAST TENSE 


53 

Whenever we use the past tense, we should always have 
an adverb or an adverbial expression in the sentence to 
indicate the definite time. Sometimes the adverbs are 
omitted, but they can be readily supplied from the context. 

Grant threw his left wing across the river before the battle. 

Jim Hawkins was concealed in the apple barrel. 

Locksley’s horn sounded at an exciting moment in the lives of 
those within the castle. 

Exercise 2. — Add the adverb or adverbial expression 
that will make the time definite: 

1. Shakespeare was born-and died-. 

2. The Normans came to England-. 

3. I went to the library-. 

4. The Great War began-and ended-. 

5. The Declaration of Independence was written-. 

6. I saw him-. 

7. Our football team won-. 

8. I got up-. 

9. I caught the train-. 

10. Lincoln was assassinated-. 

11. I entered the theater as-. 

3 

The past progressive tense is used in the same way 
to express a definite time, except that the progressive 
shows the action as going on, when another past action 
occurred. 

I was studying my lesson when he came into the room. 

We were eating dinner when there came a knock at the door. 

4 

The past emphatic is used for past time in the same 
three ways as the present emphatic: to make a statement 


54 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


stronger; to ask a question; to make a denial or negative 
assertion. 

He did tell me when I asked him. 

Did you go with him yesterday? 

I didn’t go with him yesterday. 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — 1 . Foreigners sometimes use 
the present perfect where the past is required. Correct the 
following: 

I have gone to the library last night. 

When I have seen him go, I called to him. 

I have heard Caruso the season before he stopped singing. 

I have done my home work last night. 

2. Illiterate speakers often use the present for the past. 
Correct the following: 

I see him yesterday. 

I come late this morning. 

We win the game last week. 

3. Another serious mistake made by uneducated people 
is a confusion of the past participle for the past in the 
irregular verbs. Correct the following: 

He drunk a pitcher of water. 

I seen him yesterday. 

I done it last week. 

He sung well at the concert. 

I come late yesterday. 

Exercise 3. — Write sentences in which you use the past 
tense of the following verbs with an adverb expressing the 
definite time of the happening: 

come, see, let, win, bring, take, seek, lay, be, sing, begin, 
choose, lost, win, beat, bet, light. 


THE PAST TENSE 


55 


Questions: 

1. What is the usual sign of the past? 

2. Give examples of irregular verbs. 

3. What is the chief use of the past tense? 

4. How do we use the progressive form of the past? 

Remember. — 1. You must know the correct form when 
you use a verb in the past tense. 

2. The past is used only when speaking of an action 
completed at a definite time (expressed or implied) in the 
past. 


LESSON XI 

THE FUTURE TENSE 


THE FORMS OF THE FUTURE 


Regular Progressive Emphatic 

I shall study I shall be studying I will study 

you will study you will be studying you shall study 

he, she, it will study he, she, it will be studying he, she, it shall study 

we shall study we shall be studying we will study 

you will study you will be studying you shall study 

they will study they will be studying they shall study 


We see that the future tense follows the general law of 
English in expressing time by a phrase (made up of a pro¬ 
noun, an auxiliary verb, and a part of the verb). 

The auxiliaries that we use for the future are two very 
old verbs, will and shall, which have lost all forms except 
the present, shall and will , and the past, should and would, 
and are, therefore, called defective verbs. The forms that 
follow constitute the complete verbs. They have no use 
except as auxiliaries. 


Present of shall and will 


I shall 
you shall 
he, she, it shall 
we shall 
you shall 
they shall 


I will 
you will 
he, she, it will 
we will 
you will 
they will 


Past of shall and will 
I should I would 

you should you would 

he, she, it should he, she, it would 


56 


THE FUTURE TENSE 


57 


we should 
you should 
they should 


we would 
you would 
they would 


THE USES OF THE FUTURE 
1 

We use the regular and progressive forms to denote 
simple expectation of happenings in the future. 


I shall go to the mountains next summer. 
You will see to-morrow. 

He will arrive on the 5:15. 

We shall be thinking of you. 


2 


We use the emphatic form to show intention, promise, 
determination, or strong feeling on the part of the writer or 
speaker. It is the form of the future used in prohibitions. 

I will go to the mountains in spite of everything. 

You shall not go. 

They shall not pass. 

Cheating shall never help me! 

N.B. The fact that we often use either the present for 
the future (7 see him to-morrow ), or the colloquial expres¬ 
sion {I am going to see him to-morrow) makes the regular 
form I shall see him to-morrow sound more formal and em¬ 
phatic than it really is. The emphatic form is, of course, 
1 will see him to-morrow. 

THE FUTURE IN QUESTIONS 1 

In questions there is a slight variation in use. We always 
use shall in the first person. Shall I see you to-night? Shall 

1 Take this subject up only when the other uses of the future are 
firmly fixed. 


58 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

we go? But in the second and third persons we use the 
form that we expect in the answer. If we are merely ask¬ 
ing what a person expects to do, we say: Shall you go to the 
concert to-night? The reply expected is: I shall go or I 
shall not go. But if we are inviting some one to go with 
us and are expecting to pay for the tickets, we say: Will 
you go to the theater? and expect, Yes , 1 will. If we say: 
Will he be there? we expect, He will. If we say: Shall he 
do it? we expect, He shall. 

SHOULD AND WOULD 

The rules for the use of should and would when they are 
only auxiliary verbs are the same as those for shall and will. 
Should and would represent a weaker form of expectation 
or intention, so weak, indeed, that there is almost a nega¬ 
tion in them. We ought never to say I would like; always 
I should like; I should be glad to go, because there can be 
no compulsion in a feeling of pleasure. 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — 1. It is said that only those 
born in England use the future forms correctly. Scotch, 
Irish, and Americans, although they speak English, use 
will and would in the first person for shall and should. It 
is a sign of discrimination and a nice use of English to say 
I shall go to-morrow when you mean expectation only, and 
I should like to go when you express merely desire. 

2. There is a more illiterate mistake made in the use of 
the future. This mistake, especially common among for¬ 
eigners, is the use of shall with the third person when only 
the meaning of the regular future will is intended. Correct 
the following: 

The curtain shall rise in a minute. 

My friend shall be here soon. 

He shall do it, I know. 


THE FUTURE TENSE 


59 


Exercise. — Choose the correct form from those given in 
the parenthesis: 

1. I (shall, will) be glad to go. 

2. They (shall, will) understand. 

3. He (shall, will) be present, I think. 

4. We (shall, will) join the party. 

5. I (shall, will) rise at six. 

6. (Shall, will) you go to the mountains or the seashore? 
We (shall, will) go to the mountains. 

7. (Shall, will) you have an ice-cream soda? 

I (shall, will), thank you. 

8. We (should, would) like to see the exhibition. 

9. You (shall, will) not go. 

10. While I write, you (shall, will) be reading. 

Questions: 

1. What forms of the future tense are there? 

2. What is a defective verb? 

3. What meanings do the auxiliary verbs shall and will have? 

4. Why do we use the regular future tense so little in speaking? 

5. What is the rule for the use of shall and will? In questions? 

Remember. — Shall is used in the first person for the 
simple future. 


LESSON XII 

TIME AND TENSE CONTINUED 


THE COMPOUND TENSES 

The three simple tenses that we have studied would be 
sufficient if we always referred to events which happen at 
definite times in the past, present, or future. But we often 
wish to refer to events as having happened not at some 
definite time, but in some period of time preceding or 
coming up to one of the three definite times. 

1 

Suppose we wish to say, using only one verb, that we 
began going to high school three months ago and that 
we are still attending school. We could not say I went 
to high school for three months, because the past shows an 
event definitely or entirely past. Nor could we use the 
present tense, because the action began in the past. We 
need a tense to bridge these two tenses, to show a time 
beginning in the past and coming up to the present. We 
have such a tense. I have gone to high school for three months 
now. This tense is called the present perfect and shows 
time beginning in the past and coming up to the present. 
(Other uses of the present perfect tense will be taken up in 
Lesson XIII.) 

2 

Suppose we should want, in one sentence, to tell of 
two past events, one of them preceding the other. We 
may not use the past tense in both verbs because it 
would indicate that both actions happened at the same 

60 


TIME AND TENSE CONTINUED 


61 


time. We need a tense to show a time preceding or coming 
up to a definite past time. Leif Ericson had come to America 
before Columbus discovered it. Men had believed the world to 
be flat before Columbus discovered America. This tense is 
called the past perfect and shows a time preceding or 
coming up to a definite past time. (This tense will be more 
fully discussed in Lesson XIV.) 

3 

We have also a tense that bears a corresponding rela¬ 
tion to the definite future. 1 shall have gone before he comes. 
Our descendants will have finished the cathedral by 2000. This 
tense is called the future perfect tense and shows time pre¬ 
ceding or up to a definite future time. (It will be taken up 
in Lesson XIV.) 

4 _ 

The diagram, which is self-explanatory, may help to make 
this time relation clear. 



Fit the sentences given as examples in sections 1, 2, and 3 


into the diagram. 











62 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


5 

These tenses, the present perfect, the past perfect, and 
the future perfect, are called the compound tenses, because 
both in form and in use they are compounded of the 
simple tenses. They are really double tenses as their 
names indicate, for they bridge two kinds of time. In 
form you will notice they are made by using the present, 
past, and future tenses of the verb to have as an auxiliary 
and the past participle of any verb conjugated: I have 
carried, I had carried, I shall have carried. 

ADVERBS 

The adverbs generally used with these tenses are, as we 
might expect, the adverbs that show indefinite time or 
extent of time like: already, yet, just, for three years, up to 
this time, many times, ever, often, etc. 

Questions: 

1. Why aren’t the three simple tenses sufficient for our uses? 

2. What does 1 went to high school for three months mean? 

3. What does I have gone to high school for three months mean? 

4. What does 1 am going to high school for four years mean? 

5. What is the general use of all the compound tenses? 

6. When do we use the past perfect tense? 

7. Why are these tenses called compound tenses? 

Exercise 1. — In what tense is each of the following found: 

have been, shall be, will be, had been, shall have been, had 
gone, came, has come, had found, will have fallen, shall break, 
had broken, have forgotten, had burst. 

Exercise 2. — What times do the italicized verbs indicate 
in the sentences which follow: 


TIME AND TENSE CONTINUED 


63 


I have seen him many times. He had gone before I came. 
I shall go to-morrow. We have been fishing all day. He is a 
miser now. We shall have moved by September 1. I had it 
yesterday. Where have you put it now? I have known him a 
year. I had had it a year when I lost it. We seem to be ready. 
We liked him. She has found it. 

Exercise 3. — Put with each of the following verbs an 
adverb which will show that you understand the use of the 
tenses: 

I am here. We were there. They have been in Europe. 
They have studied their lessons. We shall go. They will have 
gone. I know him. I have known him. 

Remember. — The compound tenses are used to express 
a time preceding or coming up to a definite time. 


LESSON XIII 


THE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE 

When we come to the compound tenses we find that 
there are only two forms, the regular and the progressive. 
The emphatic form is indicated by stressing the auxiliary 
verb. 


1 

FORMS OF THE PRESENT PERFECT 


Regular 
I have carried 
you have carried 
he, she, it has carried 
we have carried 
you have carried 
they have carried 


Progressive 
I have been carrying 
you have been carrying 
he, she, it has been carrying 
we have been carrying 
you have been carrying 
they have been carrying 


2 

We see from a study of the conjugation that the present 
perfect tense is made up of the present of the auxiliary 
{have) and the past participle of the verb. As shall or will 
is a sign of the future, so have (or has) is a sign of the pres¬ 
ent perfect tense. 

The past participle is used in forming the perfect tenses. 
In regular verbs, the form of the past participle is gen¬ 
erally the same as that of the past tense. In irregular 
verbs, past participles vary, and those forms which are 
irregular must be learned. 


64 


THE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE 65 

Exercise 1. — Form the present perfect of the following 
verbs: 

do, be, write, read, lay, lie, steal, rob, know, speak, pay, break, 
leave, rise, go, wake, beat, hurt, let. 

3 

USES OF THE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE 

If we look back at our diagram, Lesson XII, we see that 
the present perfect is the first compound tense. It ex¬ 
presses time only in relation to a definite present time. 

I. In general, it represents past time coming up to the 
present. 

I have been here two months to-day. 

II. It may represent any happening in the past to which 
no definite time, or an indefinite past time, is assigned. 

I have been to Chicago. 

I have already read the paper. 

III. In another use, the present perfect has much the 
same value as the present. It represents habitual action or 
general truth coming up to the present time. It is less 
positive than the present of general truth because the time 
element is so stressed that a time limit seems to be implied. 

I have always walked to school. 

Honesty has always seemed the best policy. 

IV. The progressive form is true to its use in stressing 
the duration of the action, and it is even more immediate 
in its connection with the present. 

I have been going there twice a week. 

I have been reading for an hour. 


66 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


4 

ADVERBS 

The adverbs most commonly used with the present per¬ 
fect are: already, yet, ever, always, usually, since, or any 
expression of extent of time such as for five years, many 
times, etc. 

Exercise 2. — Tell what particular use of the present 
perfect we have in each of the following sentences. Is it 
time up to the present, an indefinite past time, habitual 
action, or general truth? 

1. I have lived here five years. 

2. Has the bell rung yet? 

3. He has already finished the novel. 

4. I have not seen him since we went to the play together. 

5. It is the best play I have ever seen. 

6. I have usually worked mornings and walked afternoons. 

7. Truth has always won over falsehood. 

5 

Mistakes are often made in interchanging the past tense 
and the present perfect. They are easily confused since 
they both refer to time before the present. To avoid such 
confusion, one should always remember that the past is 
used only to express a definite time entirely past; that 
the present perfect is used for indefinite past time up to 
the present or for past action to which no definite time is 
assigned. When we use the past we are emphasizing the 
time at which the deed was done; when we use the present 
perfect we are emphasizing the deed itself or its accomplish¬ 
ment. If you say, “I saw ‘Loyalties/” some one im¬ 
mediately asks, “When? ” because the statement is felt to 
be incomplete. But if you say, “I have seen ‘Loyalties/” 
the emphasis is entirely on your having seen it. 


THE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE 


67 


The difference in the use and meaning of the two tenses 
can be seen in the different implications of the following 
questions: Have you seen the principal? Did you see the 
principal? The first asks only for information concerning 
whether or not you have seen the principal anywhere before 
the time of the question. The second implies that he had 
asked to see you at a definite time. Either is correct if used 
for its correct meaning. 

Exercise 3. — In the pairs of sentences which follow, tell 
just which meaning is implied by the tense used: 

I lived in Chicago five years. 

I have lived in Chicago five years. 

Did you go to the Museum? 

Have you been to the Museum? 

Did you see “Lightnin'” when it was in New York? 

Have you seen “Hamlet” this winter? 

Did you study your lessons last night? 

Have you studied your lessons? 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — 1. See Lesson X, Section 4, 1. 

2. The past is sometimes carelessly used where only the 
present perfect is permissible. This is especially true when 
the adverbs yet and already are used. Correct the following: 

I didn't do it yet. I did it already. 

3. Never use the present to represent time beginning at 
a definite time in the past and coming up to the present: 
Say I have been in New York two years, not: I am in New 

York two years. Correct the following: 

I am working here a month. 

He is in this country fifteen years. 


68 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Questions: 

1. What is the sign of the present perfect? 

2. What are the two most important uses of the present 

perfect? 

3. How does it differ from the past tense when referring to 

past time? 

4. Why is it wrong to say: I didn’t do it yet; I have gone to 

the library yesterday; I am in this school three months. 

Remember . — The present perfect tense represents time 
coming up to the present, or a past action to which no 
definite time has been assigned. 


LESSON XIV 


THE PAST PERFECT TENSE AND THE FUTURE 
PERFECT TENSE 


1 


FORMS OF THE 

Regular 
I had carried 
you had carried 
he, she, it had carried 
we had carried 
you had carried 
they had carried 


PAST PERFECT 

Progressive 
I had been carrying 
you had been carrying 
he, she, it had been carrying 
we had been carrying 
you had been carrying 
they had been carrying 


We see from a study of the conjugations that the past 
perfect tense is made up of the past of the auxiliary (have) 
and the past participle of the verb. Had is the sign of the 
past perfect. 


2 

USES OF THE PAST PERFECT 

If we look back at the diagram, we find that the past 
perfect tense expresses a time preceding or coming up to a 
definite past time. 

1. Leif Ericson had come to America before Columbus dis¬ 

covered it. (Past time preceding a definite time) 

2. Men had believed the world to be flat before Columbus 

discovered America. (Past time up to a definite past 
time) 


69 


70 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


The past perfect tense is a dependent tense (as are all 
compound tenses) and should only be used when a past 
tense is in the sentence or is implied. 

1. I had gone before the mail arrived. 

2. But Grant had already moved his troops across the river. 

3. He had done it many times before. 

4. He had always told the truth; so we believed him then. 

3 

Exercise 1. — Use the correct tense, past or past perfect, 
of the verb in parenthesis in each part of the sentences 
which follow: 

1. I (come) into the room after he (leave). 

2. When he (die) I (know) him two years. 

3. I (be) there an hour before he (come). 

4. I (eat) my dinner before they (arrive). 

5. He (enter) after I (leave). 

6. You (tell) her because I (laugh) at you. 

7. We (instruct) him, because we (decide) it was necessary. 

8. We already (decide) when you (ask) us. 

9. We just (enter) when the speaker (begin). 

10. I never (fail) before last term. 

Exercise 2. — Why is the past perfect not used in the fol¬ 
lowing sentences ? 

1. I entered as he came in. 

2. I haven’t seen him for a week. 

3. I have never done this before. 

4. He saw the disaster when it happened. 

5. He jumped in front of the train just as it passed by. 

6. I opened the door as he came in. 

4 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — 1. Careless people often use 
the past tense when they mean the past perfect. Correct 
the following: 


PAST PERFECT AND FUTURE PERFECT TENSES 71 

1. He said he already did it. 

2. I was there an hour when he came. 

3. 1 knew the friend who accompanied me ever since we were 

children. 


2. A past tense can be used in the same sentence with 
another past only when it refers to an event happening at 
the same time with the other event. Note the difference 
in meaning of the two sentences that follow: 

The men had put away their cards before the lieutenant came 
in. 

The men put away their cards when the lieutenant came in. 


5 

FORMS OF THE FUTURE PERFECT TENSE 


Regular 

I shall have seen 
you will have seen 
he, she, it will have seen 
we shall have seen 
you will have seen 
they will have seen 


Emphatic 
I will have seen 
you shall have seen 
he, she, it shall have seen 
we will have seen 
you shall have seen 
they shall have seen 


The future perfect tense is the last of the compound 
tenses and the easiest to use because it can never be con¬ 
fused with any other tenses. It is made of the future of 
have and the past participle of the verb. Shall have or will 
have is the sign of the future perfect tense. 


6 

USE OF FUTURE PERFECT TENSE 

This tense is used to express time up to or before a defi¬ 
nite future. 

I shall have finished my homework by nine o’clock and then 
I shall go for a walk. (Up to a definite future) 


72 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

I shall have finished my homework before Jack calls for me. 

(Some time before a definite future) 

Exercise 3. — Account for the tense of each verb: 

Once upon a time, the god Apollo swore by the River Styx 
and violated his oath. It had long been a law that, if the gods 
swore by the River Styx, they must keep their word. It was, 
therefore, necessary to provide punishment for this delinquent 
god. He was ordered by Jupiter to become a mortal and serve 
King Admetus as a shepherd. Although he was an erring god, 
he was so wonderful that every one recognized that he pos¬ 
sessed a certain divinity. He did everything easily and well; 
he sang and played upon the lyre divinely. But it was only 
after he had died that they realized what a being had been 
among them. They recounted all that he had done; they tried 
to sing again what he had sung; they tried to write down the 
words that he had spoken. Never did they dream that a god 
had been among them. They knew only that he had left with 
them a deeper vision. So they called him poet. 

Questions: 

1. What is the sign of the past perfect? 

2. What is the principal use of the past perfect? 

3. Why is it wrong to say He said he did it already? 

4. What is the sign of the future perfect? 

Remember. — The chief use of the past perfect is to 
express a time in the past preceding another time in the 
past. 


LESSON XV 

VOICE 

1 

DEFINITION 

We remember that when we were discussing the three 
kinds of verbs (transitive, intransitive, and copulative — 
lesson vi), there were two that showed action (transitive 
and intransitive), one of which carried the action over to 
another noun. Birds sing. Adam ate the apple. In both 
these sentences, the verb tells what the subject does. 

Sometimes, however, we wish to tell not what the sub¬ 
ject does, but what is done to the subject. John is loved 
by everybody. The apple was given to Adam . The tree was 
cut down by the gardener. 

When the verb shows the subject as acting it is said to 
be in the active voice; when the verb shows'the subject 
as passive and receiving the action, it is said to be in the 
passive voice. 

Only transitive verbs can have both active and passive 
voices; for only transitive verbs can show nouns as acting 
and as receiving action. 

A bear ate John. Bear is acting and John receives the 
action. We may state this thought in another way. John 
was eaten by the bear. John is still the receiver of the action, 
but the object has become the subject and the verb has 
changed its form and is now in the passive voice. 

Intransitive and copulative verbs are all considered as in 
the active voice. The boy jumped. (No passive) God is 
good. (No passive) The sun shines bright. (No passive) 

73 


74 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


2 

FORM 

The passive voice has the same tenses as the active 
voice. It is formed by using the verb to be as an auxiliary 
with the past participle of the verb conjugated. 


Present 1 
I am taught 
you are taught 
he, she, it is taught 
we are taught 
you are taught 
they are taught 


Past 1 

I was taught 
you were taught 
he, she, it was taught 
we were taught 
you were taught 
they were taught 


Present Perfect 1 
I have been taught 
you have been taught 
he, she, it has been taught 
we have been taught 
you have been taught 
they have been taught 


Future 1 

I shall be taught 
you will be taught 
he, she, it will be taught 
we shall be taught 
you will be taught 
they will be taught 


Past Perfect 1 
I had been taught 
you had been taught 
he, she, it had been taught 
we had been taught 
you had been taught 
they had been taught 


Future Perfect 1 


I shall have been taught 
you will have been taught 
he, she, it will have been taught 
we shall have been taught 
you will have been taught 
they will have been taught 


3 

Mistake to be Avoided. — Do not confuse the progressive 
active tenses, which are made up of the present participle 
and the verb to be, with the passive voice: 


1 It will be noticed that the auxiliary verbs show the tense. 


VOICE 


75 


Active Voice 


Present 

Past 

Future 

Present Perfect 
Past Perfect 
Future Perfect 


I am seeing 
I was seeing 
I shall be seeing 
I have been seeing 
I had been seeing 
I shall have been seeing 


Passive Voice 

I am seen 
I was seen 
I shall be seen 
I have been seen 
I had been seen 
I shall have been seen 


4 

USE 

The passive voice makes it possible to avoid the awkward 
use of the impersonal pronouns one and they. Smoking is 
prohibited. The baby was named Helen. It is, therefore, 
often used in stating laws, in giving general directions, or 
in any case where no particular person is addressed or no 
doer of the action is assigned. The straight line that is 
drawn from the center of a circle to its circumference is called 
a radius. The water should be brought to a boiling point. 
The money was stolen . 


5 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — 1. Avoid the use of the 

passive voice, unless you wish to make the receiver of the 
action emphatic. Usually the passive voice is a weaker 
form than the active because it employs more words. 

The ball was carried across the goal line by Maeterlinck, 
(weak) 

Maeterlinck carried the ball across the goal line, (better) 

The apple was given to Adam by Eve. (Apple is emphasized) 

2. When you begin a sentence in one voice, try not to 
change in that sentence to the other voice. Make the 
structure of the sentence parallel by using the same voice 
in both parts. 


76 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


We went to a concert last night which was enjoyed by all of 
us. (weak) 

Last night we went to a concert, which we all enjoyed, (better) 
I gave my teacher my report book, and it was misplaced by 
him. (weak) 

I gave my teacher my report book, and he misplaced it. (better) 
Questions: 

1. What auxiliary do we use in the passive? 

2. What participle do we use in the passive voice? 

3. How do the forms of the regular passive voice differ from 

the forms of progressive active tenses? 

4. Why are transitive verbs the only ones that have voice? 

5. When should we use the passive? 

6. What parallelism should we preserve in the use of the 

passive voice? 

Exercise 1. — Change the verbs in the following sentences 
to the passive voice: 

1. You should hold your fork, not like a dagger, but like a pen. 

2. One should not tuck one’s napkin under one’s chin. 

3. They told me at the desk that I had been asked for. 

4. One does not do this in polite society. 

5. If you drop a weight from the top of a building, it falls 

with increasing velocity. 

6. My friend lives in a town which they call Potatoville. 

7. They drafted my brother into the army. 

Exercise 2.—Change the verbs in the following sentences 
to the active voice: 

1. I was recommended to a certain book by one of my friends. 

2. The book was finished by me this afternoon. 

3. A good time was had by every one. 

4. The ball was fallen upon by the captain, by whom it was 

carried across the goal line. 

5. Nothing that’s done by me ever seems to turn out right. 


VOICE 


77 


Exercise 3. — Make the structure parallel: 

1. Latin must be studied, if you wish to take an A.B. 

2. Many things were bought, and we carried them back to 

the camp. 

3. With our bathing suits on, we paddled out to the middle of 

the lake, and the canoe was turned over. 

4. When my lessons had been learned, I went out for a walk. 

5. I was taught dancing by her, and we became very good 

friends. 


LESSON XVI 

VERBS OFTEN CONFUSED 1 

An English teacher was once riding on a Thirty-fourth 
Street crosstown car. A woman, rising suddenly from her 
seat opposite, hurried over to the conductor and exclaimed, 
“Leave me out at Fifth Avenue! ” To the surprise of the 
English teacher, the conductor said in a rather irritated 
tone, “I can’t leave you out; I can only leave you in. 
But I will let you out at Fifth Avenue, if you like.” The 
English teacher moved down and took a seat near the 
conductor remarking, “You have the same job that I have, 
I see.” The serious minded conductor replied, “The people 
on this crosstown line talk the worst English I’ve ever 
heard. When they lose their pocketbooks, they are con¬ 
stantly lending nickels from other people. Nine out of 
ten ask me whether this car will bring them to the ferry. 
I always say, ‘No’; and, when they’re about to change 
cars I add, ‘But, it does take you there.’ I’m an educated 
man, and this bad English distresses me.” The English 
teacher had arrived at Sixth Avenue. ‘'Let me out here, 
please, she said. ‘‘Certainly, madam,” replied the con¬ 
ductor who understood only correct English. 

The conductor mentioned but a few of the verbs which 
are confused by careless speakers or by those who are learn¬ 
ing the language. 

The verbs taken up here are considered only in the mean¬ 
ings which are confused. Make yourself familiar with the 
principal parts of all verbs taken up in this lesson. 

1 This lesson is too long for one assignment. 

78 


VERBS OFTEN CONFUSED 


79 


1 

The first group comprises those somewhat alike in form. 
The intransitive verbs lie, sit, and rise are confused with 
the transitive verbs, lay, set, and raise. 

lie lying lay lain 

lay laying laid laid 

to lie (to recline; never takes an object) 
to lay (to put down; always takes an object) 

Pick out the transitive and the intransitive verbs in all 
the examples given under Section 1. 

Lie down, Tray! 

The baby lies awake without crying. 

Mother is lying down. 

I lay abed late this morning. 

The book has lain out on the grass all night. 

He lays the book on the table, as he goes out. 

Lay your hat on the shelf. 

Laying his book down, he joined us. 

He laid the helmet beside his comrade. 

He has laid up a small fortune. 

sit sitting sat sat 

to sit (to take a position bent at the hips) 

Sit down, please! 

He sits idle day after day. 

He sat with me an hour. 

He has sat there waiting since morning. 

rise rising rose risen 

raise raising raised raised 

to rise (to come or get up; never takes an object) 
to raise (to bring up; always takes an object) 


80 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


He rises at dawn. 

Rise to the occasion! 

Rising gracefully, he left us. 

He rose and sank three times, disappearing forever. 

He has risen to the position of vice-president. 

He raises the flag at dawn. 

Raise us up! 

He raised a row about the affair. 

They have raised chickens on their farm for two years. 


2 


There are other words which are confused because of 
a likeness of meaning or form: leave and let , may and can , 
and learn and teach. 


leave leaving left 

let letting let 


left 

let 


to leave (allow to remain) (to go away from) 
to let (to permit) 

In the examples given under Sections 2 and 3, try to re¬ 
place the verb by the meaning given above the examples. 


Leave me alone; I am not afraid. 

He leaves the window open at night. 
Leaving her, he went for the doctor. 
They left me at the door. 

He has left her with her mother. 

Let me out, please! 

He lets her do as she chooses. 

Letting her know the truth, he left her. 
She let him go when he asked to do so. 
He has let them rent the house. 


can ) could) are defective verbs; they have no other 
may) might) principal parts 


VERBS OFTEN CONFUSED 


81 


can (to be able) 

may (to have the right or permission to) 

Can you help me? 

He can read. 

He can lift one hundred pounds. 

We could see across the bay. 

May 1 go to-day t means, Will you permit me to gof 

He may read as long as he likes. 

He may stay up until ten o’clock. 

teach teaching taught taught 

learn learning learned learned 

to teach (to convey knowledge or to instruct) 
to learn (to receive knowledge or to study) 

We may teach a person or a subject. Teaching is giving 
out knowledge. Learning is acquiring knowledge. 

He learned his lesson when it was properly taught to him. 
The teacher learned the names of his students. 

The boys taught the teacher the game of baseball. 

We learn through teaching others. 

3 

Those who are influenced by foreign usage, sometimes 
confuse the following pairs of verbs: speak and talk; go 
and come; bring and take; lend and borrow; stay and stood; 
rob and steal; spill and pour. 

speak speaking spoke spoken 

talk talking talked talked 

to speak (to utter words with formality, precision, or au¬ 
thority) 

to talk (to utter words informally and unconstrainedly) 


82 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


The difference between speak and talk is so subtle that 
they are often used interchangeably, but there are times 
when it is unidiomatic to use one for the other. In the fol¬ 
lowing examples they are used correctly; if the other verb 
were used the sentence would be incorrect or the meaning 
changed. 

We shall talk it over. (Speak is never used with over.) 

Has the baby begun to talk yet? 

Yes, she can speak a piece. 

We do not speak when we meet. 

The President spoke at Carnegie Hall. 

Has the senator spoken yet? 

They talked incessantly in the theater. 

come coming came come 

go going went gone 

to come (to move toward the speaker; used with the adverbs 
here or hither) 

to go (to move from the speaker; used with the adverbs 
there or from here) 

Come with me; let us go fishing. 

My mother said, “When you go to school, take your lunch.” 
My teacher said, “When you come to school to-morrow, bring 
your note book.” 

bring bringing brought brought 

take taking took taken 

Bring and take bear the same relation to each other as 
come bears to go. 

to bring (to carry to the speaker) 

to take (to carry from the speaker to some one else) 

We bring to and take from. 

Bring the book to me, and I will take it to Mr. Smith. 
When you bring the money, you may take the suit. 


VERBS OFTEN CONFUSED 


83 


lend lending lent lent 

borrow borrowing borrowed borrowed 

to lend (to give to temporarily) 
to borrow (to take from temporarily) 

I lent him my umbrella. 

He borrowed my umbrella from me. 

Lend me your pencil, please. 

May I borrow your pencil? 

Lend is always a verb, never a noun. The illiterate 
Give me the lend of a pencil, please, should be Lend me your 
pencil, please. 

stay staying stayed stayed 

stand standing stood stood 

to stay (to remain where you are) 

to stand (to take or keep an erect position) 

I stayed there an hour sitting under a tree which stands near 
the water. 

“Stand!” cried the guard. “Stay there; don’t move or I’ll 
fire.” 

The stranger stood at the back of the room until a pupil offered 
him a seat, where he stayed until the period ended. 

rob robbing robbed robbed 

steal stealing stole stolen 

to rob (to take something from a person to whom it belongs 
or from the place where it belongs) 
to steal (to take something not your own) 

He robbed the bank of a thousand dollars. 

He stole a thousand dollars. 

The man was robbed. 

The child was stolen by kidnapers. 

The nest was robbed by the boy. 


84 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


pour pouring poured poured 

spill spilling spilled spilled 

to pour (to direct the flow of a liquid from a container to 
a receptacle) 

to spill (to allow a liquid to run out accidentally or wastefully) 

He spilled his coffee on the table cloth. 

The hostess poured him a second cup of coffee. 

He poured the solution into the test tube. 

A few drops were spilled upon the table. 

Which of the following actions is inexcusable and which 
is careless? 

He poured his coffee into his saucer. 

He spilled his coffee into his saucer. 

Exercise 1. — Use correctly in sentences each of the 
verbs discussed in this lesson. 

Questions: 

1. Why are let and leave confused? 

2. Why are lie and lay confused? 

3. Why are bring and take confused? 

Remember . — Most of the mistakes taken up here are 
illiterate and must be corrected by those who wish to 
speak English. 



LESSON XVII 

USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS 

Capital letters are a form of punctuation in that they 
show beginnings and give emphasis or importance to words. 
The chief uses of capitals are as follows: 

1. Sentences begin with capitals. 

2. The first word in a line of poetry begins with a capital. 

A boy’s will is the wind’s will, 

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 

3. In English, the first personal pronoun, singular num¬ 
ber, nominative case is written with a capital letter, as is 0, 
when used in address. 

O John, when shall I see you again? 

4 . The important words in titles begin with capitals. 

The Wreck of the Hesperus. 

5 . All proper nouns begin with capitals. 

John, England, Latin, Tuesday, Paris, June, 

Jew, Christian, American, Irish, Vulcan. 

6. All proper adjectives derived from nouns begin with 
capitals. 

English plum pudding, French pastry, Irish stew, Latin gram¬ 
mar, Indian meal. 

When proper adjectives come into use as common words, 
the capital is generally omitted. Give the derivation of the 
following words: 

vulcanized, paris green, pasteurized, listerated. 

85 


86 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

7. Titles or locations are capitalzed only when used with 
proper nouns; that is, when they become a part of the 
name of a particular person, place, or thing. 

doctor, professor, lieutenant, avenue, hospital, river, city, 
railway, building, station, street, west. 

Doctor Carrel, Professor Dewey, Lieutenant Labienus, Fifth 
Avenue, Bellevue Hospital, East River, Kansas City, Southern 
Pacific Railway, Woolworth Building, Pennsylvania Station, 
Fifty Ninth Street, Central Park West. 

8. Abbreviations are usually capitalized. 

Mr, Mrs., A.B., Ph D., N.W., M.D., D.D.S., B.C., A.D., 
M.P., R.S.V.P., C.O.D. 

Some abbreviations that are not capitalized are: 
etc., viz., ibid., sic., e.g., i.e., a.m., c.c., ft., yd. 

9. We capitalize the names of the deity and pronouns 
that refer to Him: 

God, Lord, Jehovah, Elohim, Our Father, The Creator, etc. 

When polytheistic religions are referred to, the word god 
is not capitalized. 

The god Apollo; the goddess Athena. 

10. There are common nouns that are sometimes used as 
proper nouns when they designate a particular place, person, 
or thing. They are generally preceded by the definite article. 
The West, The South, The President, The Bible, The Church. 

11. Occasionally authors use capitals for personification 
or emphasis. 

And Laughter holding both his sides. 


USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS 


87 


Mistakes to be Avoided. — 1 . Of the subjects you take 
in school only the languages are capitalized. Do not capi¬ 
talize : 

history, mathematics, physical training, elocution, etc., un¬ 
less they come under rule seven: Elocution I, Chemistry IV. 

2. Do not capitalize the seasons or the centuries: 
spring, winter, fall, nineteenth century. 

Exercise 1. — Why are the italicized words written as 
they are, with or without capitals? 

1. Samuel heard the voice of God. 

2. Apollo was a Greek god. 

3. Last Sunday was a typical spring day. 

4. My favorite subjects are history and English. 

5. Fifth Avenue is the most famous avenue in the city. 

Exercise 2. — Try to divide the following words into four 
groups. Line off four columns on paper. Read the words: 

west, president, jewish, winter, friday, irish, canal, mountains, 
law, senate, mother, hygiene, latin, history, indian, greek, 
algebra, april, autumn, northwest, street, colonel, class-presi¬ 
dent, thoroughfare, sophomore, high school, king, god, senior, 
public school, wind, economics, college, subway, police depart¬ 
ment, commission, bible, aunt, congressman, revolution, war, 
truth. 

In the first column put the words that always begin with 
a capital: Tuesday. In the second column put the words 
that never begin with a capital (except, of course, at the 
beginning of a sentence): summer. The third column is 
for words that are capitalized when used with other words 
to make proper nouns: avenue. Use the fourth column for 
words that are sometimes written with a small letter, when 
they are used as common nouns; and sometimes with a 
capital, when used alone, or with the definite article, to 


88 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


stand for a particular person or place: aunt, Aunt; presi¬ 
dent, the President; west, the West. 

Exercise 3.—Rewrite the passage below correctly, decid¬ 
ing whether the italicized words should begin with capitals 
or not: 

The president sent a commission to the west last summer to 
study the customs and history of the indians. The chief of 
the commission was captain Brown, who lives on seventy second 
street in this city. The captain is irish and has a son in this 
high school. The boy is president of his class and is a good 
student. He always receives ninety in english and science, 
though his marks in mathematics and latin are seldom so good. 

Remember. — We capitalize the names of particular 
persons, places, or things, and of adjectives derived from 
them. 


LESSON XVIII 

PUNCTUATION OF THE SIMPLE SENTENCE 


1 

In Lesson V. we discussed the punctuation which 
follows sentences to show whether they are declarative, 
interrogative, or exclamatory. All punctuation has this 
purpose of helping us to understand written language. We 
shall first discuss punctuation in sentences which have one 
subject and one predicate; simple sentences we call 
them. 

In discussing inflection, we saw that meaning in English 
is largely dependent on the order of words in the sentence. 
In English, the natural order of the sentence is: 

The complete subject precedes the complete predicate, 
and the connection of the subject noun with the predicate 
verb must be clear. For exceptions, see lesson iv. 

John saw a hear going into the woodshed. 

John , going into the woodshed , saw a hear. 

Adjectives precede the nouns they modify: Ripe apples; 
pretty girls; jolly boys. 

Adverbs form part of the predicate: John saw the bear 
suddenly. 

If this normal word order in the sentence is changed or 
interrupted, or if a word is omitted, we generally use punc¬ 
tuation marks to help to make clear the relation of parts of 
the sentence. We see, therefore, that in English, punctua¬ 
tion is almost as important as are words themselves. 

89 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


90 • 


2 

The mark of punctuation which is most commonly 
used to indicate change in word order, or the omission of 
a word easily supplied, is the comma (,). 

I. The comma is, therefore, used: 

(а) When part of the predicate precedes the subject: 

In 1919, John saw a bear. 

Suddenly, John saw the bear. 

(б) When the adjective word or words follow the noun: 

Apples, red and ripe, are for sale. 

II. We use a comma whenever the order of words is 
interrupted: 

Abraham Lincoln, the son of very poor parents, is the hero of 

democracy. (We call this interruption apposition) 

Come, boys, at once. (We call this interruption direct address) 

III. We use a comma whenever a word is omitted: 

Mary, come here (word omitted is you , subject of the verb). 

Men (and), women (and), children. 

I went to the store for some eggs, cheese, bread, and butter. 

Words of equal importance used without the easily 
supplied conjunction and , as in the last two sentences 
above, are called words in series. The repetition of and 
sounds awkward in modern English though common in the 
Bible. The comma placed before the conjunction appear¬ 
ing between the last two words in the series shows they 
are not to be taken as a pair. 


3 

We use an apostrophe in a word, as we use the comma 
in a sentence, to make the meaning clearer or to indicate 
the omission of a letter. 


PUNCTUATION OF THE SIMPLE SENTENCE 91 


The boy’s hat. (the apostrophe means belonging to one boy) 
They don’t know, (don’t = do not) 

It’s right, (it’s = it is) 

Exercise 1. — Account for the use of punctuation in the 
letter head. Supply words that might take the place of the 
commas: 

230 West 113 Street, 

New York, N. Y., 

Jan. 10, ’23. 

Exercise 2. — Punctuate the following sentences: 

Mary you cant go. Its James turn. Im sure, therefore, 
that you wont ask. Shed be willing to let you go, but you 
mustnt ask her. 

Exercise 3. — Rewrite the following story and place 
commas where you think they are needed: 

BUTTERFLIES 

One day a Chinese farmer a lover of beauty came home 
from work in the fields. He found his wife an artistic em¬ 
broiderer on silk linen and cotton working upon a silk kimona. 
For a long time he stood watching her fingers deft and skilful. 
He saw her snip off threads of gold black and purple. Sud¬ 
denly the young farmer a poet at heart caught up a handful of 
the silk strands and closed his fingers about them. For a 
moment he held them clasped tight. Then he opened his 
hand. To his great surprise a mass of butterflies gold black 
and purple flew from his hand and filled the room with move¬ 
ment and color. For a little while he looked at them with 
joy and awe. Then he began closing his hand again. One by 
one the butterflies flew back. His hand closed about them. 
Again he held only the silk strands in his hand. 

Boys and girls did you also see the butterflies flying about 
the room? Did you for a moment want to believe in their 
existence? Then you too are poets. 


92 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Questions: 

1. How is relationship of words usually shown in English? 

2. Why do we punctuate? 

3. Give three reasons why we use commas. 

4. Why do we use apostrophes? 

5. What is meant by apposition? Direct address? Words in 

series? 

6. Why do we use no apostrophe in any possessive form of 

the pronoun: his, hers, its, or theirsf 

Remember . — Use a comma only when you have a 
reason for its use. 


LESSON XIX 

GROUP ELEMENTS WITHIN THE SENTENCE 

1 

PHRASES 

In the first lesson, we found that each part of speech 
had its particular power or function in the sentence: nouns 
stand for things; verbs say something about things; adjec¬ 
tives modify things; and adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, 
or other adverbs. Often, we find groups of words that 
have the function of a single word in the sentence. We 
call such groups of words phrases or clauses. We call 
them phrases if they are grammatical units (i.e., if they 
stand for a single part of speech) and do not contain a 
subject and predicate; we call them clauses if they are 
grammatical units and contain a subject and a predicate. 

I ran to my house {home), which was near {near hy). 

2 

When phrases stand for single parts of speech, they have 
definite forms. They must begin with a preposition, an 
infinitive, or a participle. 

1. A prepositional phrase consists of the preposition and 
its object with its modifiers. All prepositions must have 
objects: 

to school, on the hill, in a minute 

Whenever a preposition is used alone, it becomes an 
adverb: 

I went in. Put it on. 

93 


94 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


2. A participial phrase consists of the participle and its 
complement or modifier, whenever one is necessary to com¬ 
plete the meaning: object, adverbial modifier, or predicate 
noun or adjective. (See Lesson VI.) 

laughing, going quickly, seeing his reflection, being a good man 

3. An infinitive phrase consists of the infinitive, its sub¬ 
ject, if it has one, and its complement, whenever it has one. 

to give, to go quickly, to save a penny, to be happy 

These phrases are used in sentences as parts of speech: 
nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. 

3 

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES 

1. To Tipperary is a long way. 

(Prepositional phrase used as noun) 

2. The house on the hill is for sale. 

(Prepositional phrases used as adjectives) 

3. The curtain will rise in a minute. 

(Prepositional phrase used as adverb) 

INFINITIVE PHRASES 

1. He hoped to go home. 

To err is human; to forgive , divine. 

(Infinitive phrases used as nouns) 

2. He gave me something to eat. 

(Infinitive phrase used as adjective) 

3. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water . 

(Infinitive phrase used as adverb) 

PARTICIPIAL PHRASES 

1. Playing tennis is good exercise. 

(Participial phrase used as noun) 


GROUP ELEMENTS WITHIN THE SENTENCE 95 


2. (a) Running down stairs , he tripped and fell. 

(b) We collected money for children suffering from starvation. 

(Participial phrases used as adjectives) 

3. He came leaping down stairs. 

(Participial phrase used as adverb) 

4 

PUNCTUATION 

1. The normal position for modifiers composed of more 
than one word is immediately after the word they modify: 

We shall see in the morning. 

He lives in a house on the hill. 

When we make changes in this order, it is for the sake 
of emphasis, and we indicate the change in order by using 
a comma. 

In the morning , we shall see. 

In a house on the hilly he lives by himself. 

2. Participial phrases that introduce a sentence are 
always set off by commas. 

Having come to the end of the roady we turned. 

Walking through the dark corridor , the boy stumbled. 

5 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — Any change of order which 
allows the reader to remain in doubt as to the connection 
of the modifier is bad. We sometimes change or confuse 
the meaning of a sentence by not placing the phrase near 
the word it modifies. This danger arises when we begin a 
sentence with a participial phrase. We must be careful to 
make sure that the introductory participial phrase has a 
noun or pronoun to which it relates in meaning. The con- 


96 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


fusion may arise from the omission of the noun which it 
modifies in meaning, or from the fact that there are several 
words to which it may refer. 

1. Having eaten our lunch, the fire was permitted to go out. 

{nonsense) 

Having eaten our lunch, we let the fire go out. ( correct) 

2. I met him going down town. ( ambiguous) 

On my way down town, I met him. (clear) 

Exercise 1. — Pick out all the phrases, prepositional, in¬ 
finitive, or participial, in the following story. Do not try 
to give the syntax (the grammatical relation). Account 
for the commas in heavy type: 

THE SEARCH 

Once upon a time, a King wished to find out the meaning 
of life. Hoping to learn this truth from the books written 
by men in the past, he summoned his wise men of the court 
and said to them: 

“Years enough are not left to me to discover the meaning 
of life. Go you, then, to the desert. Take with you the manu¬ 
scripts of all ages. Study them thoroughly and reduce to one 
book the knowledge contained in them.” 

Salaaming, they departed to do his bidding. Having arrived 
at an oasis, they began to work. For many years, they toiled 
diligently. At last, they returned bringing with them a heavy 
volume. 

The King was much older. Taking a hasty glance at the 
book presented to him, he said: 

“I have not time to study this. Go forth again and bring 
back a page, summing up the truth of this book.” 

Again they journeyed to the oasis. Their task was different 
but as difficult. At length, they came back bringing with 
them a page. 

The King was very old. His dim eyes could not discern the 
lettering on the page. He said only: 


GROUP ELEMENTS WITHIN THE SENTENCE 97 


“It is too long to remember. Go forth again and bring 
back a word, the summing up of the meaning of life, the total 
of all human learning and endeavor.” 

The wise men returned for the third time to find the King 
dying. They were ready to give him the word. 

“O King,” they said, “the word containing the meaning of 
life and death, the word summing up the total of human learn¬ 
ing and endeavor is ‘Seek!’” 

Questions: 

1. What is a phrase? A clause? 

2. How does a clause resemble a phrase? How does it differ 

from one? 

3. What three kinds of phrases are there according to use? 

4. What three kinds of phrases are there according to form? 

5. Why must we be careful in the use of participial phrases? 

Remember . — Phrases and clauses are grammatical units 
that act as substitutes for nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. 


LESSON XX 

THE COMPOUND SENTENCE AND ITS PUNCTUATION 

1 

A sentence is a group of words having a subject and 
predicate expressing a complete thought. When there is 
only one complete subject and one complete predicate, we 
call that sentence a simple sentence. This does not mean, 
however, that the complete subject may not contain more 
than one noun and the complete predicate more than one 
verb. We may have a compound subject, two or more 
nouns joined by conjunctions: Mary and Helen are wait¬ 
ing. Neither Alfred nor Harold has come. Men, women, 
and children are assembling. The complete predicate may 
also contain two or more verbs connected by conjunctions: 
He worked hard and played hard. They came early and 
stayed late. The sentence still remains a simple sentence 
even when it has both a compound subject and a compound 
predicate: Men, women, and children sauntered down the 
street and paused to gaze at the new horseless vehicle. Neither 
Dorothy nor her brother plays cards or dances. The last 
two sentences are simple because the complete predicate 
tells something of the complete subject. 

2 

If, however, we wish to make a separate statement 
about each of the two nouns: Dorothy does not play cards, 
and neither does her brother, we have no longer a simple, 
but a compound sentence, or two sentences joined in one. 
When we add one sentence to another to form a compound 

98 


COMPOUND SENTENCE AND ITS PUNCTUATION 99 


sentence, neither the first nor the second sentence can alone 
be called a sentence. We call them independent clauses. 
An independent clause differs from a sentence, only in 
being a part of a sentence. The boys are both good students, 
but only one is a good athlete. Each of the two clauses might 
stand alone as a sentence, without changing the meaning. 
We might have written The boys are both good students. 
Only one is a good athlete. We see that the one sentence 
with the two clauses is better, because a single sentence is 
better than two short ones, if there is a common thought 
running through both. The first clause shows how the boys 
are alike, and the second how they are different. The 
larger thought which runs through both clauses and con¬ 
nects them makes the unity of the compound sentence. 
Unity of thought is essential to every kind of sentence. 
Unity is easy to obtain in a simple sentence where all of 
the predicate applies to all of the subject, but it is not so 
easy to obtain in compound sentences. We must be sure 
that we join only thoughts that have a real connection and 
not those that may just come into our own minds one after 
another. It is a fine morning, and it is time I went to school, 
is not a good compound sentence. It is a bright morning f 
and the sun is streaming into my room, is a good sentence 
because the second thought arises out of the first. Often 
in talking, we join loosely many sentences with and or so, 
which should not be joined. 


3 

Words that join the same kind of grammatical units 
— two or more nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs; two 
or more clauses, or two or more sentences — are called 
co-ordinate conjunctions. They always join units of the 
same sort and rank. The chief co-ordinate conjunctions 
are: and, or, nor, but, for, and therefore. And, or, nor, and 


100 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


but may join words: the last two, for and therefore , can join 
only clauses and sentences. There are other co-ordinate 
conjunctions, but each of them has nearly the same mean¬ 
ing as one of those named above. 

4 

The nature of the relation of the two parts of com¬ 
pound sentences is brought out by the conjunction which 
is used to connect them. When we use and to join two 
simple sentences, we are merely adding something in the 
second to make the meaning of the first clear, or we are 
adding some happening connected with it in time: Harry 
has been playing with your ivory chess men, and he has 
broken one. The flowers were blooming in the garden, and 
the birds were singing in the trees. I went to his house, and 
he received me kindly. 

The conjunctions or and nor join two thoughts when the 
second is an alternative of the first: Mary can go to-day, 
or Jack can go to-morrow. I cannot practise, nor can the 
boys do their studying. 

The conjunction but joins two sentences in which the 
second thought is the contrary of the first: We are hoping 
for the best, but the doctor does not encourage us. Usually 
1 like detective stories, but I don’t like this one. 

For joins sentences in which the second thought is the 
reason for or cause of the first: He should not lie, for he 
knows better. I know the boy, for I am his teacher. 

Therefore connects two thoughts, the second of which is 
the result of the first: He telegraphed that he would come 
to-day; therefore, we may expect him this evening. They 
will not undertake it; therefore, we must. So is very often 
used for therefore. Avoid its over use, for it is a vague word 
with a great many meanings. Try not to use so at the 


COMPOUND SENTENCE AND ITS PUNCTUATION 101 

beginning of a sentence where you should use accordingly 
or therefore. So is correct as a co-ordinate conjunction 
only when it means therefore . 

5 

It is usual, as we see in the examples, to introduce, 
with a comma, the conjunction that joins the second part 
of a compound sentence. This comma shows the break in 
the thought. If we omit the conjunction, because it is 
easy to see the relation between the co-ordinate clauses, 
we should use the semi-colon (;) which marks greater 
separation, and shows that the first clause could stand 
alone but does not. Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, 
and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you . The 
conjunctions for, therefore, so, which do not connect as 
closely as and and but, are often preceded by the semi¬ 
colon. I did not believe him; so I left the room. 

6 

Since the clauses in compound sentences are so closely 
related, it is usual to find the same order of words in both 
parts or in all parts, if there are more than two. This 
similarity of form is called parallel structure, and is almost 
always used in compound sentences by good writers: 
Washington was the father of his country; Lincoln was the 
savior. Touch not; taste not; handle not. Prove all things; 
hold fast that which is good. The moments were numbered; 
the strife was finished; the vision was closed. 

7 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — 1. Never connect the parts 
of a compound sentence by a comma only. Use the con¬ 
junction and the comma or a semicolon. If the thought 


102 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

of the two parts of the sentence is not closely connected, 
begin a new sentence at the beginning of the second part. 

The following sentences contain mistakes commonly 
made. Correct them in the ways suggested above. 

Washington was the father of his country, Lincoln was the 
savior. 

I called at the house two hours ago, Mary was not in. 
Baseball is the favorite American sport, it is played in the 
spring and summer. 

I leaned out of the window, on the roof of the next house I 
saw a large, black cat. 

2. Always precede so, when it means therefore, by a semi¬ 
colon or a period. So should never be used as a conjunc¬ 
tion unless it means therefore. Punctuate and correct the 
following sentences, leaving out or changing so: 

If I had run faster, so I should have come early. 

We worked so very hard, so we were tired. 

I went to the store, so the man wasn’t there, so I didn’t buy 
anything. 

When he asked me, so I didn’t answer. 

3. Parallel structure should be observed whenever co¬ 
ordinate conjunctions are used. This means that we must 
have the same grammatical form before and after a co¬ 
ordinate conjunction, and the same grammatical form in 
series. In compound sentences try to keep the same voice 
in both parts of the sentence. Correct the following viola¬ 
tions of parallel structure: 

I like baseball and to go on a hike. 

We know him and he is liked by all of us. 

We place a period at the end of a sentence, and the next word 
is begun with a capital letter. 

We wish to keep the city clean for the sake of health, for fire 
prevention, and giving it a good appearance. 


COMPOUND SENTENCE AND ITS PUNCTUATION 103 

He was asked to give his name, his address, and how old 
he was. 

Give me liberty or let me die. 

Exercise 1. — Note the number of compound sentences 
and compound predicates in the first chapters of Genesis. 
This is primitive writing. 

In two pages of a modern author like Stevenson or Scott, 
note the number of compound sentences which you can 
find. This sort of sentence is rare in the best modern 
writers. 

Note how many ands your schoolmates use unneces¬ 
sarily. 

Exercise 2. — Pick out the compound sentences in the 
following passages: 

1. Jack and I have neither seen nor heard of her. 
cJl. We have done as you suggested, and we are satisfied. 

3. I often see him, but he does not remember me. 

4. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul. 

5. Some said nothing, and some uttered platitudes; but a few 

had intelligent opinions. 

6. The sun set, and the stars rushed out. 

Exercise 3. — Pick out the poor compound sentences and 
tell what is wrong with them and why the good ones are 
correct: 

1. We got up early in the morning, and it was raining. 

2. She is young, but she knows a great deal. 

3. What are you doing, and are you going anywhere? 

4. Mary laughs at everything; but when there is anything 

funny, George will not laugh. 

5. They called for us, and I ran upstairs, told Helen, and we 

put on our wraps and then the telephone rang and I had 
to answer it; so we were late. 


104 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

6. They are very cautious, for they have had experience. 

7. The hero writes in the first person, and he falls in love with 

the heroine. 

Exercise 4. — Write out and punctuate the sentences in 
the following anecdote. Put periods, semicolons, and 
commas where they belong: 

WASHINGTON AT TWENTY-ONE 

Washington at twenty-one had attained his full growth he 
was tall and strong and a good wrestler horseman and swim¬ 
mer on a mission to the Indians he excited great personal 
admiration for he was equal to their best in height and bearing 
he dressed for the occasion in full Indian regalia but he did 
not use war paint the Indians at once recognized his ability 
and as a sign of their appreciation named him Canotancarius 
“ Plunderer-of-villages ” they wished him to take an Indian 
wife and remain with them as chief. 

When upon his return home he wrote to the Indian chief 
he closed his letter with these words, “It would make Cano¬ 
tancarius happy to see his friends and take them by the hand” 
To his dismay his wish was gratified for fifty of them took him 
at his word they came and camped on the green in front of 
his residence saying, “You could not come to live with us 
therefore we have come to live with you” They inspected 
every nook in the house and Washington and his mother 
could only induce them to depart after dyeing all the bed¬ 
clothes red and giving a blanket or a quilt to each of the 
braves. 

Questions: 

1. What is a compound predicate? 

2. What is a compound sentence? 

3. How does an independent clause differ from a sentence? 

4. What are the chief conjunctions used to connect the inde¬ 

pendent clauses of a compound sentence? 


COMPOUND SENTENCE AND ITS PUNCTUATION 105 

5. How is the compound sentence punctuated when the con¬ 

junctions are used? How is it punctuated when the con¬ 
junctions are omitted? 

6. What is parallel structure? 

7. What conjunctions are usually preceded by a semi-colon? 

Remember. — Two sentences cannot be joined in a 
compound sentence unless they are closely related in 
meaning. Never use a comma, only, to separate the parts 
of a compound sentence* 


LESSON XXI 

GROUP ELEMENTS 


SUBORDINATE CLAUSES AND THEIR 
PUNCTUATION 1 

1 

USE 

A dependent or subordinate clause is like an independent 

clause in that it has a subject and a predicate and is part 
of a sentence. It is like a phrase in that it cannot stand 
alone, and takes the place of a noun, an adjective, or an 
adverb in the sentence. It usually begins with an intro¬ 
ductory word called a subordinating conjunction. The 
following are clauses, not sentences, because they are not 
complete thoughts: 

When we saw him coming, 

If you tell me the truth, 

, which was lying on the table, 

That the earth moves around the sun, 

2 

In picking out subordinate clauses within a sentence, we 
must always look for a subordinating conjunction, expressed 
or implied, and a subject and predicate. We should re¬ 
member also that subordinate clauses are used as nouns, 
adjectives, or adverbs. 2 Sentences that contain subordinate 
clauses are called complex sentences. 

1 See comment on this lesson in preface. 

2 If the teacher wishes to take up the syntax of subordinate clauses, 
he will find a complete table at the end of the lesson. 

106 


GROUP ELEMENTS 


107 


1. I know that it is true. 

(Subordinate clause used as noun introduced by that) 

2. The man who (or that) came yesterday is here again. 

(Subordinate clause used as adjective introduced by 
who or that) 

3. When he comes, I shall be gone. 

If I were you, I should stay in school. 

(Subordinate clauses used as adverbs introduced by 
when and if) 


3 

The chief subordinating conjunctions are: 

that (having three meanings; see table at end of lesson), 
who, which, when, whenever, where, wherever, why, how, 
whether, what, whatever, if, as, although, since, than, because, 
after, before, while. 

Exercise 1. — Make up interesting sentences in which 
you use clauses beginning with ten of the subordinating 
conjunctions. 

PUNCTUATION 

1. Whenever the subordinate clause precedes the 
subject noun or pronoun, we place a comma after it. 

If I were you, I should not go. 

Whenever we are invited, we go. 

Since it has happened before, it will happen again. 

2. Subordinate clauses which may be omitted and still 
leave the general meaning unchanged are set off by commas. 

Note which of the following clauses are set off by commas 
and which are not. 

My car, which is a Ford, was injured last night. 

Water, which is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, is neces¬ 
sary to man. 

Water that has become stagnant is not fit to drink. 


108 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


I have run ten thousand miles with my car, which is a Packard. 
The car that was injured last night was a Ford. 

This is the house that my uncle bought. 

The problem is unsolvable, as I see it. 

I recognize a gentleman, when I see him. 

3. That is a conjunction which joins so closely that it is 
never preceded by a comma. See sentences in 2 and also: 

He said that he was sorry. 

I am the man that you seek. 

He ran so fast that he fell. 

4. Noun clauses are not separated from their predicates 
by commas unless they are within quotation marks. 

He says, “John is waiting.” 

He says John is waiting. 

He asked when I was going. 

He asked, “When are you going?” 

Questions: 

1. Why is a subordinate clause not a sentence? 

2. What must we always be able to find in looking for a 

subordinate clause? 

3. When do we set clauses off from the rest of the sentence 

with commas? 

4. When do we introduce noun clauses by a comma? 

Exercise 2. — Pick out all subordinate clauses and name 
the introductory word. Account for punctuation (or lack 
of it) with each subordinate clause. 

THE UGLY DUCKLING 

Once upon a time, when animals could speak, a mother 
duck sat long upon a nest full of eggs, which had been placed 
under her by the farmer. Among these was an egg that was 
much larger than the others. One spring morning, the yellow 


GROUP ELEMENTS 


109 


ducklings began to pick their way out of the shells. When 
at last all the fledglings had burst out, the mother duck found 
that the large egg was still unbroken. Although she feared 
that something serious was the matter with it, she continued 
to sit upon it. At last, the large shell, too, began to break away. 
The mother duck was disappointed to find a long, gawky body, 
not nearly so beautiful as the little ones. “Perhaps this is 
a chicken,” she thought. However, when they reached the 
pond, the ugly duckling went as fearlessly into the water as did 
the others. But his neck was so long and his legs so awkward 
that he was the laughing stock of the barnyard. This ridicule 
made the poor duckling very miserable. 

Since he was an adventuresome bird, he decided to swim 
out of the pond into a stream that flowed down to the river. 
There he found a cove frequented by wild birds, which flew 
across the country. But he could not fly as they did, though 
he was still growing larger and stronger. He felt that he 
did not belong in this world, for he was ugly, despised, and 
incompetent. 

One day there floated into view the most beautiful bird he 
had ever seen — a large white swan. Keeping in the shadow 
of the shore, he swam along watching this new wonder. He 
no longer thought of himself, but only of her beauty. Sud¬ 
denly, he saw an eagle flying around above the swan’s head. 
Then he realized how long his neck was, and how strong his 
beak. He used his long legs to rush to the aid] of 'the swan, 
and, setting up a shrill cry as he did so, he frightened the eagle 
away. As the swan turned toward him, he saw in her eyes a 
look of joy. 

“Where did you come from, mate?” she asked. 

He did not understand her at first, but he was glad that 
some one liked him. As he looked down into the water, he 
saw his own reflection. It was like that of the beautiful 
creature by his side. He knew then that he too was a swan. 

Remember . — A subordinate clause is used as a part of 
speech and requires thought in punctuation. 


110 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


CONSIDERATION OF CLAUSES FROM INSPECTION 
OF INTRODUCTORY WORD 


Adjective Clauses 

l. 1 that meaning which 
or who , used as a 
restrictive rela¬ 
tive pronoun. 

The man that was 
here left suddenly. 

2. when, where, mean¬ 
ing to which, in 
which, at which, 
etc. 

The place where 1 
live is near here. 


Adverb Clauses 

1 Mhat meaning in 
order that; so that. 


He died that they 
might live. 

2. when, where, mean¬ 
ing only time or 
place. 

He went where and 
when he chose. 


Noun Clauses 

l. 1 that having no 
meaning, a sub¬ 
ordinating con¬ 
junction only. 

I knew that it was 
here. 

2. when, where, used 

interrogatively. 

7 asked where he 
was. 

3. any other inter¬ 

rogative word 
like: why, how, 
who, which, 
whether, what, etc. 
1 know why he went. 
He asked me where 
I was going. 

4. The words what 

and who when 
they mean that 
which or one who. 


He did what (that 
which) he could. 

He punished whom 
(those whom) he dis¬ 
liked. 


3. any other relative 

pronoun like: who, 
which and their 
compounds. 

This is the boy who 
won. 

4. the word as when it 

means who after 
such; and but 
when it means 
who . . . not after 
a negative. 

Such as (who) desire 
this should write. 

There is none but 
likes him (who does 
not like him). 


3. any other conjunc¬ 
tions like: if, as, 
although, since, be¬ 
cause, after, be¬ 
fore, etc. 

If you will, I shall 
be glad. 


1 The introductory word that in all three uses may be omitted. 
It is always implied, however, and its particular meaning can be 
readily understood. 


GROUP ELEMENTS 


111 


Noun clauses are 
usually used with 
verbs or expressions 
with which we may 
have indirect state¬ 
ment. The clause is 
generally either the 
subject or the object 
of the verb. It is also 
used in apposition 
with words which ex¬ 
press thought, like: 
fact, reason, idea, news. 


An adjective clause, 
by definition, always 
modifies a noun. This 
noun, which is called 
the antecedent, usually 
immediately precedes 
the relative pronoun; 
for it is a principle of 
good writing to have 
the adjective clause 
as near as possible to 
the noun it describes. 


Adverb clauses gen¬ 
erally modify the verbs 
in the main clause, 
although they may 
sometimes be used to 
modify adverbs or 
adjectives. 


LESSON XXII 
SEQUENCE OF TENSES 1 
1 

A sentence, we know, is a complete thought. But 
complete thoughts are not always true thoughts. They 
may be the creation of our wishes, our hopes, or of fancy. 
1 wish that I were very rich. Fairies appear on a midsummer's 
night. I hope that he will come. Or sentences may express 
thoughts that are not true because the person who expresses 
them is ignorant or deceitful. Julius Caesar lived in the 
first century A.D. The teacher failed me because he disliked 
me. These untrue statements are said to be thoughts be¬ 
cause they have come from human minds and have the 
form of thoughts; that is, they move from a subject to a 
predicate. 


In the preceding paragraph, we see that often the most 
important thing to know about a thought is who thought 
it or how the author was thinking it. Was the truth 
modified by fancy, ignorance, anger, or greed? Usually 
statements of fact are made without giving their source, 
as in the sentences: The world is round. The sun rises in 
the East. Water is heavier than air. I am going to-morrow. 
Caesar lived in the first century B.C. 

Often, however, we wish to give the author of a state¬ 
ment. Nurse says, u Fairies come out on a midsummer's 

1 See comment on this lesson in preface. 

112 


SEQUENCE OF TENSES 


113 


night .” The Bible says, “Love your neighbor as yourself .” 
Lincoln said, “This is a government of the people, by the 
people, for the people.” Father says, “It is time to go to bed.” 
In all these sentences the most important part of the sen¬ 
tence is that which tells us who uttered the thought. It 
contains the subject noun and predicate verb of the sen¬ 
tence; and the quotation, which was originally a complete 
sentence, has now become a part of the predicate, the 
object of the verb. When we quote the exact words of an 
author, we introduce the quotation with a comma to show 
where the quoted thought begins, and we put quotation 
marks around the words to show they are the exact words 
spoken. We call the quoted words direct quotations. 
Conversation in fiction is direct quotation. As Mr. Pick¬ 
wick entered the room he said, “ Weller, my boy, we shall 
travel to-day.” 


3 

There is a second and more common way of quoting 
what others or we ourselves say, think, or feel. Instead 
of Father says, “It is time to go to bed ” we may have Father 
says that it is time to go to bed or The Bible says that we should 
love one another or Nurse believes that fairies appear on a 
midsummer night. This second way of giving the author of 
a thought is called indirect quotation. It is commonly 
used when we tell what we fear, hope, or believe as well 
as what we say. I fear that he is not coming. In indirect 
quotation, we omit the comma and quotation marks and 
use instead the conjunction that. The thought quoted has, 
however, the same relation to the main verb as has the 
direct quotation. It is the direct object completing the 
transitive verb. 

Exercise 1 . —Change the following direct quotations to 
indirect quotations: 


114 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


John says, “Harold is the best runner in the school.” 
Mary’s music teacher says, “Beethoven was the greatest 
musician that ever lived.” 

Father says, “Jack may come to-morrow.” 

Billy always says, “I’d like some more.” 

Exercise 2. — Change the following indirect quotations to 
direct quotations, punctuating them correctly: 

The declaration of independence says that all men are born 
equal. 

The teacher says that algebra is not difficult. 

The proverb says that a stitch in time saves nine. 

Father says that John is to be a lawyer. 

4 

Direct quotation uses the exact words of the speaker 
within quotation marks. Indirect quotation is more 
concerned with telling us the meaning of what was said 
or felt and often changes the person and time of the verb 
quoted. He says } “I am coming at once ” becomes in indirect 
quotation He says that he is coming at once. John said yes¬ 
terday , “I am writing to mother now ” becomes John said 
yesterday that he was writing to his mother then. In the last 
example we have had to change the person and the time 
and the adverb. The change of person is so natural that 
it troubles no one. The change of tense comes naturally 
to those who have heard it used correctly from birth. But 
for foreigners or those who have heard incorrect English 
in our large cities, a somewhat artificial analysis of the 
sequence of tenses in indirect quotations is necessary to 
make them use the correct tenses according to rule until 
they become habituated to the correct use. 


SEQUENCE OF TENSES 


115 


5 

SEQUENCE OF TENSES IN INDIRECT QUOTATION 

Sentences are thoughts expressed in speech or writing. 
Whenever we speak or write thoughts, we are speaking or 
writing from the present. When we say The sun is shining 
now , we use the present tense because the sun is shining at 
the same time that we speak or write. The fact is present 
with the expression of the thought. It rained yesterday . 
The past tense is used because we are expressing a time before 
that of speaking or writing. I have been here for five hours. 
The present perfect is used because we are referring to a 
time up to the time of speaking or writing. And so with 
all the tenses we have discussed. This is the natural use 
of tenses, sometimes called the primary use. Whenever, 
therefore, we have indirect quotations depending on a 
verb of saying, thinking, writing, or feeling in the present 
tense, we use tenses as they are naturally used. There is 
no difficulty here. 

6 

But we are often called upon to tell what we said, 
wrote, felt, or thought at some time in the past. Then we 
have a different kind of tense usage. Let us illustrate this 
change of usage by an analogy. If a novelist writes a book, 
the action of which is supposed to happen to-day, he has 
little difficulty with the background or with the deeds of 
his characters. The hero may sign his name with a fountain 
pen; he may telephone to his friends; he may listen to a 
concert broadcasted by DWC; or he may ride about in a 
high-powered car or airplane. But suppose the writer were 
to tell a story of the time of King Richard or of King Arthur. 
He would then have to be careful that he put nothing into 


116 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

his story that could not have happened in that period. 
If he were to write a novel like Ivanhoe, he could not have 
Locksley’s men carry revolvers or rifles instead of staffs. 
Nor could Isaac sign his notes with a fountain pen instead 
of a quill. Or suppose he were to write a play of the time 
of King Arthur, and he wanted to show us the heroine 
receiving an important communication from the hero. 
The letter could be brought to her only by messenger 
arriving breathless after a hard ride on a foaming steed. 
The message could not come by telephone, telegraph, or 
even by mail. And the messenger could not drive up to 
the castle on a motorcycle in a cloud of dust. In short, the 
author or playwright who places the action of his story in 
an earlier time must be careful to avoid any mention or 
use of things that came into being after the period in 
which his characters lived. 

In the same way, when we tell of what we said or wrote 
in the past, we must avoid the use of any tenses which 
have connection with the real present. The tenses that 
have connection with the present are the present, the present 
perfect (the tense coming up to the present), the future 
with shall and will (the tense beginning at the present). 

Let us say then that just as the writer in representing 
an earlier period could not make use of implements or con¬ 
veniences that had not yet been invented, so we, when we 
tell of what we wrote or said in the past, may not use the 
present, present perfect, or the future with shall and will 

We may use these tenses with a verb of speaking, think¬ 
ing, writing, etc., in the past only when we give the exact 
words of the author and put quotation marks around them 
(direct quotations). 

Henry said, “John is there.” 

Henry said, “John has been there.” 

Henry said, “John will be there.” 


SEQUENCE OF TENSES 


117 


7 

How then do we represent the three kinds of time 
when seen from the past, the time present with the past, 
the time before the past, the time after the past, in indirect 
quotation? This is easier than it seems. For a time present 
with the past is, of course now, the past; and Henry said, 
11 John is there” becomes Henry said that John was there. 
(Both sentences mean that John was there at the time, 
already past, when Henry spoke.) 

The time preceding the past is, of course, the past per¬ 
fect. Henry said , u John was there last night” becomes 
Henry said that John had been there last night. Henry 
said f 11 John has already been there” becomes Henry said 
that John had already been there. (All four sentences 
mean that John was there before the time when Henry 
spoke.) 

When we wish to express a time that is future to a past 
time, we may not use shall and will because they express 
a future beginning at a real present, and can have no con¬ 
nection with a past time. We need, therefore, forms to 
express a future that may already be a past. We have 
such in the past forms of shall and will, should and would. 
They are the only future forms permissible when speaking 
from past time. Henry said, 11 John will or shall be there,” 
becomes Henry said that John would or should be there. 
(Both sentences mean that John was to be there after the 
time when Henry spoke.) 

This shift of tenses to accord with the past point of view 
is called the secondary use of tenses and these tenses the 
past, past perfect, and the future with should and would 
are called the secondary tenses. 

The rule then is: in indirect quotation, with a primary 
tense in the principal verb, we may use any tense as it is 


118 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


naturally used; but with a secondary tense, we may use 
only the tenses we have called secondary. 

Exercise 3. — Name each verb phrase as primary or 
secondary: 

I see. He is going. I have heard. We went. We had 
heard. He will go. I shall see. We should know. I may see 
her. He has gone. He will come. I can. We were there. 
I might go. It is raining. He knows. He did go. I am writ¬ 
ing. We have been paid. I was robbed. You could go. He 
would stay. 

Exercise 4. — Pick out the sentences in which only the 
secondary tenses are used: 

He said that it was time to have a world court., 

I know I can go. 

He expected he would go yesterday. 

We knew that we were late. 

I believe I shall pass. 

He knew he might win the prize. 

I feel that I can meet the requirements. 

I knew that he could raise the money. 

I thought that it would be better to go. 

I hoped we should see you. 

The principal said I should be put in Term II. 

Who said it was raining? 

I hope I may be there. 

He said that he had completed his work. 

He said that he had spoken in the meeting the day before. 

Exercise 5. — Rewrite the following story, correcting it 
and using only one system of tenses throughout: 

THE MAN AND THE MOON 

Once upon a time, the little girl of a kindly but very simple 
man said that she cannot live without the moon. Her father, 
wishing to make her happy, told her that she will have it. 


SEQUENCE OF TENSES 


119 


He tries to reach the moon in many ways. One day, he climbed 
to the top of a high tree; another day he ascended the highest 
hill he can see; but on each occasion, the moon moved away 
though it remains tantalizingly near. 

Tired out by his efforts to reach the moon and disgusted 
because he has not caught it for his little girl, he turned his 
steps back to his cottage. It was evening, and as he looked 
down into his well, he sees the moon. ‘‘This time, I shall 
catch it,” he thought, and he plunges headlong into the water. 
But the moon had disappeared. 

Wet from his dive, he goes back to his little girl, who asked 
him whether he has brought her the moon. “No, child,” he 
answered. “It was almost in my hands; but it escaped me.” 
However, he promised her that he will get it next time. 

Questions: 

1. What is meant by direct quotation? 

2. What is meant by indirect quotation? 

3. What is t’e grammatical relation of the direct and indirect 

quotation to the main verb of the sentence? 

4. What takes the place of quotation marks in indirect quo¬ 

tation? 

5. What do we mean by the primary use of tense? 

6. What do we mean by the secondary use of tense? 

7 . What are the only tenses permitted after a verb in a 

secondary tense? 

Remember .—The rule for the sequence of tenses in in¬ 
direct quotation is as follows; After an introductory main 
verb in a primary tense, all tenses may be used as they 
are naturally used; but after a main verb in a secondary 
tense only a verb in a secondary tense may be used . 1 

1 Teachers may wish to take up the exception covering primary 
tenses retained to express general truths: He said that water runs 
down hill. 


LESSON XXIII 
MOOD 

1 

We have discussed what is meant by person and number, 
tense and voice, showing the changes that the verb under¬ 
goes for each. We have left mood to the last for two 
reasons: first, because it is not very important; second, 
because it is difficult to understand. 

Mood is a form of the verb which reflects the attitude of 
the speaker towards what he says. The mood normally 
used is the indicative, because for most statements the atti¬ 
tude of the speaker is not considered. Other moods in 
English are usually shown by other words than the main 
verb, by auxiliary verbs: can, may, try to, like to, hole to, 
fear to, or by adverbs such as perhaps, possibly, not, maybe, 
by all means. However, there remain two inflected moods 
in English: the imperative, and the subjunctive. 

2 

A difference in feeling is suggested by the different forms 
of the verb to be in the following sentences, although all of 
them are present time and second person: 

1. You are not quiet now. 

2. Be quiet now. 

3. I wish you were quiet now. 

4. If you were quiet now, we could go to sleep. 

We see that the first sentence is simply a statement in 
the indicative mood. The English verb is fully conjugated 
only in the indicative mood. 

120 


MOOD 


121 


The second sentence shows the speaker as commanding 
or entreating. It is called the imperative mood, and has 
only two forms in English: the second person, present, 
active and passive: Teach! Be taught! 

The third sentence expresses a wish for something not a 
fact at the time, and the fourth supposes something that 
is not a fact at the time. We may say that both these 
verbs, then, state something that is contrary to fact. The 
subjunctive mood is now used only in sentences like the 
last two to show the speaker as wishing or supposing 
something that does not at the time exist. In short, the 
subjunctive in English is now used only in wishes or con¬ 
ditions, although not all conditions take the subjunctive. 

3 

SUBJUNCTIVE CONJUGATION OF TO BE 
INTRODUCED BY IF 

Present Subjunctive (Used rarely.) 

If I be If we be 

If you be If you be 

If he, she, it be If they be 

Past Subjunctive 

(Used for statements contrary to fact at present time.) 

If I were (now) If we were (now) 

If you were (now) If you were (now) 

If he, she, it were (now) If they were (now) 

Future Subjunctive 

(Used when doubt as to fulfilment is very strong.) 

If I should be (or would) If we should be (or would) 

If you should be (or would) If you should be (or would) 

If he should be (or would) If they should be (or would) 


122 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Present Perfect Subjunctive (No longer used.) 

If I have been If we have been 

If you have been If you have been 

If he have been If they have been 

Past Perfect Subjunctive 

(Used for statement contrary to fact in past time.) 

If I had been (yesterday) If we had been (yesterday) 

If you had been (yesterday) If you had been (yesterday) 
If he had been (yesterday) If they had been (yesterday) 


4 

MOODS IN CONDITIONAL SENTENCES 

A conditional sentence is one in which one clause 
beginning with if lays down a requisite (the condition), or 
makes a supposition, on which the other clause bases a 
conclusion. 

If you walk south three blocks ( requisite), you will come to 
the subway ( conclusion ). 

If it is raining ( condition ), the ground is wet ( conclusion ). 

If I were you (supposition), I should go (conclusion). 

If he had been in the game (supposition), we should have 
won (conclusion). 

We always use the indicative mood in conditional sen¬ 
tences when the condition is possible; we must always 
use the subjunctive when the supposition made is known 
to be contrary to fact. 


/ 5 

INDICATIVE MOOD IN CONDITIONS 

Present Condition 

If he is here (he may or may not be here), he is at work. 


MOOD 


123 


Past Condition 

If he was here (perhaps he was or perhaps he was not), he was 
at work. 

If he has been here (he may have or may not have been), he 
has been at work. 

Future Condition 

If he will be here (he may or may not be here), he will be at 
work. 


SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD IN CONDITIONS 

Present Condition 

If he be here (I doubt it), he is at work. ( Used rarely.) 

If he were here now (I know he is not), he would be at work. 

Past Condition 

If he had been here (I know he was not), he would have been 
at work. 

Future Condition 

If he should be here (I doubt it very much), he would be at 
work. 


6 

The uses of the subjunctive in conditions are : first , when 
the condition is contrary to fact in present time, use the 
past subjunctive in the “ if ” clause and the secondary 
future (should and would) in the conclusion. 

If he were in the room now (he is not), he would be at work. 
If I were a hero (I am not), I should not be afraid. 

Second , when the condition is contrary to fact in past 
time, use the past perfect subjunctive in the “ if ” clause 
and the secondary future or future perfect {should and 
would) in the conclusion. 


124 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


If the French had won the French and Indian War (they did 
not), we should now be studying French instead of English. 
If I had been there yesterday (I was not there), I should have 
told him the truth. 

The same rules for the use of the subjunctive apply in 
wishes: 

I wish he were here now (he is not here). 

I wish you had been with me yesterday (you were not). 

The same rules apply in clauses beginning with unless 
and though. 

Unless I were sure, I should not attempt it. 

Although there were an army opposing me, I should go on. 

7 

Mistakes to be Avoided. — 1 . Do not use the past indica¬ 
tive of the verb to he in a present condition contrary to 
fact. Correct the following: 

If I was there now, I’d tell them a few things. 

If I was going home now, I would take it with me. 

If he was in the building, we could do something. 

2. Do not use the past indicative for a past condition 
contrary to fact. Correct the following illiterate sentences: 

If I didn’t go yesterday, I could go to-day. 

If I had my wits about me then, he wouldn’t have got the best 
of me. 

If he studied hard enough, he would have passed. 

3. Do not use “ would have ” in the if clause of a past 
condition contrary to fact, because would has a future 
meaning and cannot be used to show past time. Correct 

the following illiterate sentences: 


MOOD 


125 

If he would have been on time, he would have caught the 
train. 

If I would have known it on time, I would have gone. 

If I would have been older, I should have got the job. 

If he would have had time, he would have finished. 


Exercise 1. — Pick out the contrary to fact conditions in 
the following: 

If he goes, he will let us know. 

If he were here, I should know it. 

If they had had a chance to compete, they would have won. 
If he won the prize, he worked for it. 

If they are rich, they are stingy. 

If the house is beyond the next hill, we shall reach it by five 
o’clock. 

If I had had breakfast, I should not be so hungry. 

If we had waited, we should have been late. 

Exercise 2. — Put in the correct form of the verb in 
parenthesis: 

If he - (to be) twenty-one, he could vote. 

If he - (to be) twenty-one, he can vote. 

If he - (to be) twenty-one, he voted. 

If he - (to be) twenty-one, he would have voted. 

If he - (to fail) he has only himself to blame. 

If he - (to work) he would have passed. 

If they-(to go) to the library, they could have obtained 

the book. 

If they-(to adjourn) in time, they could have come home 

to dinner. 

If the game - (to last) another minute, we might have 

won. 

Exercise 3. — Write original sentences containing present 
and past conditions contrary to fact. 











126 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Questions: 

1. How do we usually express mood in English? 

2. When do we use the imperative? 

3. What two uses of the subjunctive remain? 

4. What kinds of conditional clauses use the subjunctive? 

5. What tense of the subjunctive do we use for conditions 

contrary to fact. Present time? Past time? 

Remember . — The past and past perfect subjunctive are 
used in conditions contrary to fact. 


PART II 

SUPPLEMENTARY LESSONS 



STUDY OF WORDS 


SPELLING 

HISTORY — PREFIXES 

1 

THE ALPHABET 

There was a time when there was no spelling. Words 
existed only as sounds, and all knowledge had to be handed 
down by word of mouth from generation to generation. 
But men longed to conquer time. At first, they cut pic¬ 
tures of their deeds into the rock. Later, they invented 
signs to stand for sounds. At last came a people, called 
the Phoenicians, who selected twenty-two of these many 
signs and conventionalized them into letters. What a long 
step that was toward civilization! Was there ever an 
invention as great as the alphabet? The great French 
writer Anatole France in an imaginary conversation with 
Cadmus, the mythical founder of the alphabet, makes 
Cadmus say, “ It was my invention. What I wanted was 
a system of ready and rapid notation. The Egyptians 
mixed up in their hieroglyphs the signs that stood for 
ideas with those that represented sounds. I chose twenty- 
two of these numberless signs and made of them the twenty- 
two letters of my alphabet. Yes, letters that means, 
signs corresponding each to one single sound, and pro¬ 
viding, by their quick and easy combination, a means of 
depicting all sounds! Was it not truly ingenious? ” And 
Anatole France answers Cadmus, saying, “ The Phoenician 
alphabet has become throughout the whole world the neces- 
129 


130 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

sary and perfect instrument of thought. . . . Your inven¬ 
tion was infinitely fine and precious, although still incom¬ 
plete. For you never thought of the vowels, and it was 
those ingenious fellows, the Greeks, who hit upon them. 
Their part in the world was always to bring things to 
perf ection.” 

2 

SPELLING AND SOUND 

Words we use so easily have had a long history. That 
is the chief reason why they are so hard to spell. If only 
we could spell them as they sound! But, out of respect to 
their long history, we must spell them as they look. Often 
the historical spelling of a word has been kept, but its 
pronunciation has been so changed that it is hardly recog¬ 
nizable by the people from whose language it originally 
came. In Latin, Caesar is pronounced Kaiser; in French, 
Paris is Pah-ree; in German, Berlin is Ber-len; in Spanish,' 
Madrid is Mah-dreeth. In short, we Anglicize the pro¬ 
nunciation but keep the original spelling. 1 It may, there¬ 
fore, be helpful in spelling a word, to know something of 
its history. When, however, this knowledge is not avail¬ 
able, we must learn to spell in other ways. 

3 

HOW WE LEARN TO SPELL 

A good speller is gifted with a power to see details without 
effort. He sees the letters in a word without fixing his mind 
upon them. A poor speller, on the other hand, gains the 

1 The English people have not been consistent in making the same 
combination of letters stand for the same sounds. Ough is pronounced 
differently after c in cough, b in bough, t in tough, th in though, thr in 
through. 


PREFIXES — SPELLING 


131 


idea from a word by the general form or sound. Such 
people have to make an effort to learn to spell. They may 
read well and easily and may have good vocabularies in 
speaking, but they become slaves when they try to write. 
It is almost as disgraceful to misspell as to make illiterate 
mistakes in grammar. Poor spelling has cost many people 
their opportunities to obtain positions or to make social 
connections. To learn to spell, one must learn to look at 
words closely, and especially to note how they appear 
when written. Let us try to interest ourselves in the 
formation of words. 


4 

THE BUILDING UP OF WORDS 

The greater number of our one-syllable words come from 
the Anglo-Saxon ancestor of English, which was a primitive 
language based on a simple civilization. These are the 
words which we use most frequently in our daily speech, 
such words as hope, time, love, day, see, go, and he. Our 
longer words come from the highly developed civilization 
of Rome, and are compounded with prefixes and suffixes. 

To learn to spell long words, we should break them 
up into their parts, to find the original or root word. 
Se-par-ation, pre-par-ation. If you note that these two 
words are from the same root word, you will not be likely 
to misspell either of them. Sometimes words are made 
by putting two together. Old words of this kind are wheel¬ 
wright and playwright. More recent words are baseball, 
football , and houseboat. Originally they were two words; 
then they were written with a hyphen; now they are 
written as single words. Such words are easy to spell be¬ 
cause they are a mere matter of the addition of easily 
spelled words. 


132 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


5 

PREFIXES 

Difficulty in spelling begins with words that have pre¬ 
fixes and suffixes. Let us look at some of these prefixes 
arranged in two columns: those ending with a vowel and 
those ending with a consonant. 

Vowel ending prefixes Consonant ending prefixes 


auto 

automobile 

ab 

aborigines, abbreviate 

a 

apart 

ad 

admit, address 

ante 

antedate 

at 

attention 

anti 

antipathy, antagonize 

ac 

accept 

be 

besiege 

ar 

arrive 

bi 

bisect 

com, con 

committee, construct 

contra 

contradict 

circum 

circumstance 

co 

coeval 

dis 

disappoint, dissatisfy 

de 

describe 

ex 

exclude 

di 

divide 

in 1 

innocent, inoculate 

demi 

demi-tasse 

im 

immediately 

e 

eject 

il 

illegible 

extra 

extraordinary 

ir 

irresponsible 

fore 

foresight 

inter 

interrupt, interest 

intro 

introduce 

mis 

misspell, misunderstand 

0 

omit 

non 

nonsense 

pro 

professor 

ob 

obstruct 

pre 

prejudice 

oc 

occur 

re 

repeat 

op 

oppress 

retro 

retrospect 

post 

postscript 

se 

separate 

per 

perform, perhaps 

semi 

semiannual 

pur 

pursuit 

tele 

telephone 

sub 

subordinate 



super 

supernatural 



sue 

success 



trans 

transfer 



tra 

tradition 



sym 

sympathy, symmetrical 



for 

forget 


1 Notice that in has two meanings: not and an intensive mean¬ 
ing: insincere, inflammable. 


PREFIXES — SPELLING 


133 


If we look at the words formed with these prefixes, we 
see that those in the first list are never followed by a doubled 
consonant. On the other hand, those in the second list 
have a doubled consonant whenever the stem-word begins 
with the same consonant as that with which the prefix 
ends — address , misspell , dissatisfy , etc. This knowledge 
should keep you from misspelling such words as disappoint 
and professor. However, we should observe that the con¬ 
sonant at the end of the prefix is often attracted to the 
first letter of the stem-word to make the word less harsh 
as in appoint , attend , occur , illiterate , immediately , supple¬ 
mentary , succeed , occasion. 1 To increase your vocabulary 
and to understand new words as you come to them, you 
should try to learn the meaning of as many of these prefixes 
as possible. 

Questions: 

1. How and where did the alphabet develop? 

2. How many letters are there in the alphabet? 

3. Which are the vowels? Which are sometimes vowels and 

sometimes consonants? 

4. Find out how vowels differ from the consonants. 

5. Why is it so difficult to spell English words? 

6. In what two ways are words built up? 

7. Why has disappoint one s and two p’st 

8. Why has dissolve two s’s? 

9. Why is the consonant at the end of a prefix sometimes 

changed? 

1 These changes usually occur in the words derived from the more 
liquid Latin tongue which did not like to use the harder combinations 
which the Northmen enjoy. The same difference is noticeable in the 
languages of the southern and northern Indian tribes. Compare the 
names Savannah and Susquehanna with Penobscot and Kennebec. 


134 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Exercise l. 1 — By attaching prefixes, make at least five 
words from each of the following stem-words: 

fer, cede (ceed), duce, ject, spect, pute, rupt, scribe, pose, 
port, ceive. 

Exercise 2. — Add another word before or after the fol¬ 
lowing words: 

house, potato, head, road, frog, born, back, hair, shaft, 
woman, plane. 

Exercise 3. — Look up the meanings of prefixes which 
you do not already know. 

Exercise 4. — What are the meanings of the following 
words: 

medieval, immigrant, emigrant, inflammable, involuntary, 
international, antediluvian, antitoxin, telephone. 

Remember. — You should be able to spell all the words 
given as examples in this lesson. 

1 Since spelling is a matter of writing it is advised that all spelling 
exercises be written out by students and that teachers give dictation 
exercises, rather than lists of words, to test spelling. 


STUDY OF WORDS 
SPELLING (Continued) 

1 

SUFFIXES 

If you took a dictionary and looked down page after 
page, or if you considered only the words you yourself 
know, you would find that almost all English words end in 
consonants or in silent e, which is, as far as sound goes, the 
same as a consonant ending. The English speaking peoples 
seem to have liked to conclude words with a consonant 
sound. 1 Almost the only vowel sound commonly found at 
the end of English words is the vanishing sound of y. 
Roughly then, we can divide English words into: 

1. those ending in a consonant. 

2. those ending in silent e. 

3. those ending in the vowel y. 

Let us divide suffixes as we divided prefixes, into those 
beginning with consonants and those beginning with 
vowels, and add them to our three types of words. 

1 This ending with a closed sound is not common in other languages. 
The Greeks pronounced all the e’s at the ends of words: Penelope , 
Calliope. Latin and all the languages that have descended from 
Latin have words that end in a, o, and u or the nasal en, un, etc., of 
the French. The Anglo-Saxons and Norman French had more words 
of this kind than we have: time was tee-ma; love was lu-fu in Anglo- 
Saxon and lieb-e in German. This concluding of words with open 
sounds is one of the reasons why great singers prefer to sing in other 
languages than English. The vowel endings allow them to hold the 
mouth open and keep the tone longer. There are, of course, a few 
English words which end in o and a, but their foreign origin is apparent. 

135 


136 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

SUFFIXES BEGINNING WITH CONSONANTS 



Words ending in 

Words ending in 

Words ending in 


a consonant 

silent e 

the vowel y 

ness 

goodness 

niceness 

business 

ment 

treatment 

statement 

merriment 

th 

sixth 

maketh 

sixtieth 

iy 

really 

sincerely 

happily 

ty 

casualty 

ninety 

jollity 

fui 

helpful 

careful 

beautiful 

less 

heedless 

useless 

penniless 

hood 

womanhood 

wifehood 

likelihood 

dom 

kingdom 

boredom 


s 

cats 

states 


fold 

hundredfold 

threefold 

manifold 


SUFFIXES BEGINNING WITH VOWELS 

mg 

heating 

hating 

studying 

ed 

heated 

hated 

studied 

er 

teller 

adviser 

merrier 

or 

actor 

razor 


ar 

similar 

vicar 

familiar 

ance 

appearance 

grievance 

appliance 

ence 

existence 

prudence 

experience 

ant 

commandant 

pleasant 

variant 

al 

personal 

primal 

burial 

ation 

commendation 

observation 

variation 

able 

remarkable 

lovable 

pitiable 

ible 

contemptible 

sensible 


est 

pinkest 

purest 

prettiest 

ist 

novelist 

purist 


ice 

cowardice 

service 


ic 

poetic 

static 

politic 

ate 

passionate 

climate 


ity 

personality 

futility 


ous 

bulbous 

troublous 

studious 

age 

postage 

storage 

carriage 

ize 

realize 

sterilize 


ion 

discussion 

delegation 


es 

churches 


studies 


SPELLING — SUFFIXES 137 

If we study each of the three columns that follow the 
suffixes we shall find that: 

1. In the first column where all the words end in con¬ 
sonants, the suffix, whether beginning with a vowel or a 
consonant, is added directly to the word. (See exception 
taken up in Section 2 of this lesson.) 

2. In the second column where all the words end in 
silent e, the suffix beginning with a consonant is added 
directly to the word. Exceptions: duly, truly, ninth, judg¬ 
ment, acknowledgment. 

3. In the same column when the suffix begins with a 
vowel the silent e is dropped. (The few exceptions will be 
taken up in the next lesson.) 

4. In the third column where all the words end in the 
vowel y , we find that they change to i before all suffixes 
except ing. (Note that when y is a consonant the y is not 
changed to i: loyal, boyish, playful, enjoyable, valleys, 
keys.) 

Exercise 1. — Give the original words to which the suffixes 
are added in columns two and three. 

Exercise 2. — Write out the plurals of the following 
nouns: 

country, enemy, lady, beauty, history, duty, study, geometry, 
library. 

Exercise 3. — Compare the adjectives: 
pretty, happy, lively, sickly, steady, mighty, lovely. 

Exercise 4. — Form the present participle of the following 
verbs: 

hate, hurry, hope, carry, bare, rhyme, captivate, tune, 
marry, dine, tarry, blame, scurry, bury, flame, derive, delegate, 
study. 


138 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


Exercise 5. — Write the past tense of the following verbs: 

study, hurry, bury, blame, tame, hope, fire, carry, time, 
destroy, classify, prophesy. 


2 

DOUBLING CONSONANTS 

There remains one important class of words that adds 
the suffix in a different manner from the group we have 
been studying. Let us consider the second column which 
follows our list of suffixes. These words all end in silent e. 
Although this e is not pronounced, it still plays an important 
part in the word. In nearly all words, it is a signal for us 
to give the long “ name ” sound to the vowel that pre¬ 
cedes it in the word. Notice the difference of pronunciation 
in the pairs of words that follow: 

hate hope bare dine 

hat hop bar din 

This observation should help us to understand what is 
almost a general rule in English. A vowel, silent or pro¬ 
nounced, following a single consonant, affects the sound of 
the vowel preceding the consonant. This strange fact shows 
why we need not retain the silent e when we add suffixes 
beginning with a vowel. The vowel of the suffixes ing, ed, 
er, etc., preserves the sound of the preceding vowel, and we 
say hating, hoping, dining, etc. 

But what shall we do to keep the original sound in the 
words that have the short sound such as hat, hop, din, 
when we wish to add a suffix beginning with a vowel? 
There is only one way. We must double the consonant, 
and write hatter, hopping, dinner, bitter, sitting. Doubling 
of the consonant to keep the short sound is not necessary, 


SPELLING — SUFFIXES 


139 


of course, when the word already ends in two consonants, 
as in such words as hurt, jump, bath, hold, bark, depart, 
remark, nor when the consonant is preceded by a diphthong 
which always has a long vowel sound: deep, bear, bait, 
leap, etc. 

Fill in the omitted words in the rule that follows: 

Words of one syllable ending in a-consonant, pre¬ 
ceded by a-vowel, double the consonant when adding 

a suffix beginning with a vowel. 

This rule applies to words of more than one syllable 
when, after adding a suffix, they are accented on the syl¬ 
lable containing the single vowel and consonant: 1 


beginning 

opening 

referring 

reference 

controlling 

quarreling 

preferring 

preference 

compelling 

traveling 

deferring 

deference 

permitting 

benefiting 

conferring 

conference 

unwrapping 

kidnaping 



deferring 

differing 



occurring 

coloring 



transferred 

entering 



redonning 

happening 




Exercise 6. — Add ing, ed, or any other suffix beginning 
with a vowel to the words that follow and make correctly 
spelled words: 

sin, strip, bit, commit, beg, recur, signal, travel, forget, 
unfit, credit, worship, redip, inter, suffer, profit, confer, develop, 
overstep, outwit. 

1 Words in this group are difficult because this rule is not always 
followed in books published in England. In America we spell words 
the shorter way when two ways are permissible: judgment, lovable, 
traveler, kidnaped, program. In the United States we have gone so 
far that we accept officially: thru, tho, altho, thoro, etc. 


140 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

Exercise 7. — Add ing to the following words: 

resign, run, divide, depart, root, tune, bar, date, bat, recite, 
bit, write, come. 

Remember . — To spell correctly all words taken up in 
this lesson. 


STUDY OF WORDS 
SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION 

We have considered some of the most important rules 
that govern the building up of words in English. In order 
to make our analysis of bad spelling complete, we must 
consider confusions which arise from wrong pronunciation, 
from incorrect associations of similarly pronounced words, 
and from the variability of letters representing similar 
sounds. 

1 

MISTAKES RESULTING FROM CARELESS PRONUNCIATION 
WHICH DOES NOT REPRESENT THE SPELLING 

Attention to the pronunciation of some often misspelled 
words will help us to eliminate mistakes in spelling. 

The r is often omitted in writing the following words 
because they are carelessly pronounced: library, surprise, 
February, government. 

The h following a w is omitted for the same reason: 
whether, which, where. 

The g is omitted for the same reason in recognize; and 
an a inserted in a word like athletic. 

The word qui-et is often confused with quite. 

2 

MISTAKES WHICH ARISE FROM CORRECT PRONUNCIATION 
WHICH DOES NOT REPRESENT THE SPELLING 

1. Vowels in the following words are not pronounced 
but must appear in writing: laboratory, business, marriage, 
carriage, parliament, extraordinary. 

141 


142 SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 

2. So many consonants are silent that they must be 
learned through observation and use. Some of the often 
misspelled words with silent consonants are. rh yme, 
rhythm, subtle, psychology, pneumatic. 

3 

MISTAKES WHICH ARISE FROM LETTERS HAVING 
DIFFERENT SOUNDS 

1. The letter c is sometimes sounded like s and sometimes 
like k. S is called the soft sound of c, and k, the hard sound. 
The letter c usually has the soft sound before the vowels 
c, i, and y, as in city, cell, cycle, and is sounded like k before 
a, o, and u, as in cage, code, curl. The same rule generally 
holds for the sound of g. We have the soft sound in gill, 
gem, gyroscope, and the hard sound in gate, got, gun. 

We can see now that in order to keep the soft sound of 
e in serviceable, noticeable, and the soft sound of g in change¬ 
able and courageous, we must retain the e to retain the pro¬ 
nunciation. This is the exception to rule 3 for final 'e in 
the preceding lesson. 

2. Another difficulty of the same kind causes poor spellers 
much trouble. Long e, ee, ea, and sometimes ei and ie, all 
stand for the same sound: he, deep, conceal, receive, and 
relieve. Continual difficulty in spelling arises in the con¬ 
fusion of ei and ie when they represent this sound of long e. 

The rule is that e precedes i in the diphthong after c, 
and i precedes after other consonants. Note the follow- 


ing lists of words: 




bier 

relieve 

siege 

ceiling 

Diedre 

mien 

tier 

deceit 

field 

niece 

wield 

conceit 

gies 

piece 

yield 

receipt 

chief 

shriek 

ziega 

perceive 


SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION 


143 


The words which are written with cei are comparatively 
few, but are in such general use that they are often mis¬ 
spelled. Many letters open with a misspelled receive. 

There are several important exceptions to this rule: either, 
neither, seize, weird, leisure, inveigle. Many of these words 
had originally a different pronunciation which is still some¬ 
times used. These exceptions should be committed to 
memory. 1 

4 

MISTAKES ARISING FROM CONFUSION OF SOUND 
WITH MEANING 

1. Their, the possessive form of they, ends in r like her, 
our, and your, but is often confused with the adverb and 
expletive there. Their should always be followed by a 
noun. 

Their books are here. 

There are books in the closet. 

2. Too, the adverb, is often confused with to, the preposi¬ 
tion. Only close attention to the meaning will avoid this 
mistake. 

He is going to school, too . 

This is too much. 

3. Its, the possessive, is often confused with iVs, the 
contraction of it is. 

The dog raised its paw. 

Exercise 1. — The pronunciation of the words below 
shows their correct spelling. If you are not sure of a pro¬ 
nunciation, look it up: 

1 The diphthong ei has the sound of long a in weigh, eighth; or short 
i in surfeit, counterfeit; or long i in words from the German like stein. 


144 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


superintendent, similar, familiar, villain, village, disease, 
opportunity, description, narrative, government, physiology, 
history, humorous, probable, tragedy, mathematics, woman, 
hygiene, eighth, twelfth. 

Exercise 2. — Put in ei or ie in the place where blanks 
appear, noting the pronunciation of the diphthong: 

bel—ve, n—ghbor, handkerch—f, s—zure, forf—t, rec—ve, 
bes—ge, unw—ldy, dec—ving, 1—sure, pr—st, ch—ftain, 
sover—gn, si—gh, for—gner, w—rdness. 

Exercise 3. — In the blanks use one of the words that 
appear in the parentheses: 

(their, there, they’re) -are good reasons why- about 

to sell - house. 

(its, it’s) - too late to give the cat - milk. 

(to, too) It’s never - late - go - school. 

(your, you’re) If-going home, take-books with you. 

(whether, weather) I shall go-it is good -or not. 

(of, ’ve, have) They-known a long time that you would 

- gone if you had heard - the game in time. 

(therefore, therefor) Spitting or dropping litter in public places 

is a misdemeanor and there is a penalty-; -, we may 

call it to the attention of those who break the law. 

(principal, principle) My - objection to that man is that 

he has no -. 

(advice, advise) If it were as easy to follow - as it is to 

-, we should all get on better. 

(stationary, stationery) It is a mark of good breeding to use 

good -. If we do not progress, we remain-, or go 

backward. 

(compliment, complement) Not all verbs need -. We all 

enjoy a thoughtful -. 

Remember. — To spell correctly the words taken up in 
this lesson. They are commonly misspelled. 


THE DICTIONARY 

1 

USES 

Next to, the Bibles of a language, the friendliest of all 
books are dictionaries. They help people to understand 
each other in all parts of a country and to keep the language 
of a land one. They help the present to understand the 
past by showing how words are used in books and how 
their use in speech has changed. In foreign countries, they 
help a stranger to understand and to be understood. They 
settle disputes; for debates are more often settled by know¬ 
ing the definition of the terms in a question under dis¬ 
cussion than by the proof for or against it. Dictionaries 
have helped the growth of democracy, for they have made 
it possible for the poorest child, who desires to do so, to use 
the King’s English. It is hard to imagine how the world 
got on without dictionaries. 


2 

HISTORY 

Yet, it is less than two hundred years since Dr. Samuel 
Johnson was chosen to write the first dictionary. The dic¬ 
tionaries of less democratic countries than England are of 
still later date. Dr. Johnson boasted that he compiled his 
dictionary almost alone. No one would boast of such an 
attempt to-day. The latest and greatest, The Oxford Dic¬ 
tionary, which has been recently brought to completion by 
Dr. Murray, had some thirteen hundred workers all over 
145 


146 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


the English speaking world helping in its compilation. 
The price of this latest dictionary is about four hundred 
dollars. Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary was an aristocratic 
book, for it contained only the words of the best authors. 
To-day the dictionary makes a complete census of words, 
though it does not accept all as of equal value. Some words 
belong to the lower classes of colloquialisms, or slang; but 
all of them appear, if they last long enough to be recorded. 
There are great American dictionaries, Webster’s, Worces¬ 
ter’s, The Standard, and The Century . There are abridged 
and school editions of these dictionaries as cheap as fifty- 
five cents a copy. It is important that every boy and girl 
in school should possess his own small dictionary, no matter 
how many large ones are available at home, in school, or 
in the public library. A small one is easy of access and 
easy to handle. It may save us from many mistakes in 
spelling or usage. 


3 

WHAT WE MAY LEARN FROM A DICTIONARY 

All we have to know about a word to learn more of it is 
enough to find it in the dictionary. Once this is done, we 
may find out six things about it. First, we may correct 
our spelling of it or find that it has more than one correct 
spelling. At the same time, we may see how it is divided 
into syllables and so know how properly to divide a word 
if we have to write it on two lines. Third, it gives us the 
pronunciation of vowels and consonants and the accented 
syllables. Fourth, it tells us what part of speech it is; 
and if it is a verb, its principal parts. Fifth, a large dic¬ 
tionary will show the history of a word: in what earlier 
languages it originated; and how its meaning has changed. 
Sixth, we can learn, by three methods, the meanings of a 


THE DICTIONARY 


147 


word: definitions, synonyms, and examples of its use by 
good writers. All these ways are necessary. The definition 
of words helps our thinking power; the synonyms enlarge 
our vocabularies; and the uses help us to be exact. Indeed, 
a dictionary, to make one a real scholar, must be supple¬ 
mented by wide reading. 

Exercise 1. — How do you find out the pronunciation of 
the vowel sounds in a word? 

What is the correct pronunciation of: 
inquiry, apparatus, abdomen, sahib, comely, god, Italian, 
patron, data. 

Where is the accent placed in the following words: 
address, exquisite, admirable, harass, banquet. 

Exercise 2. — What does the root mean in the words: 

preparation, separation, compare; defer, differ, transfer; 
proceed, succeed, recede, supersede; case, casual, occasion. 

Exercise 3. — Write out all you find out about the words: 
dissipate, anticipate, dissatisfied, annihilate, parasol. 

Exercise 4. — Discover the origin of the following words: 

chickadee, italics, guillotine, cereal, canary, pluck (the noun), 
colonel, artesian, dilapidated, listerine, calico, tariff, blank, 
munch. 

Exercise 5. — Write out a paragraph in which you answer 
the following questions: 

1. Do you possess a handy dictionary? 

2. Where can you find a large complete dictionary, when 
you need to refer to it? 

3. What dictionary is it? 


148 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


4. Do you ever avoid using a word because you are not 
sure of its spelling? 

5. Are you ever conscious of mispronouncing or misusing 
words? 

Remember . — The best way of settling all disputes about 
spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and use of words is by 
reference to a good dictionary. 


LETTERS 

1 

The most important writing most of us will ever do is 
the writing of letters: family letters, letters of friendship 
or love, social letters, business letters. The telephone can 
never supersede letters entirely. For they show reflection 
and have a privacy and permanence that telephone com¬ 
munication can never attain. 

To the people who receive them, letters represent their 
writers. They may be interesting or dull, neat or slovenly, 
clear or obscure, slangy or well expressed, charming or 
colorless. Many people express themselves fluently in 
letters who find it difficult to do so in conversation. 

2 

HEADINGS 

The address of the writer is important even in writing 
to our intimate friends, for we have no right to expect 
them to remember our addresses. Sometimes, moreover, 
people keep our letters, and in that case the place from 
which they were written becomes a matter of interest or 
importance. 

The dates of letters are also important. If there is delay, 
we want our correspondents to know that it is the post 
that has caused it. Dates are as important in social as in 
business letters, for they may be needed to make clear our 
allusions to yesterday , to-day , or to-morrow. 

Both the address and the date should appear near the 
top of the page. As they are separate items, they should 

149 


150 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


not be run together. The best forms, therefore, because 
they are the best in appearance, are three-line headings in 
which the date begins the third line. 

1234 Madison Avenue 1234 Madison Avenue, 

New York, N. Y. or New York, N. Y., 

May 26, 1923 May 26, 1923. 

In the first form, no terminal punctuation has been used; 
only that which would be normally necessary. This form 
is called open punctuation. The end of the line shows the 
break. In the second form, we have used terminal punc¬ 
tuation in addition to normal punctuation. If we wish to 
think of these commas as being used for words omitted, 
we can easily supply the words in and on and place the 
period at the end to indicate a full stop. This form is 
called closed punctuation. 

3 


SALUTATION 


After giving the place of writing and the date, we are 
ready to address the person to whom we are writing. This 
part of the letter is called the salutation. In a business 
letter, it is customary to begin with the name and address 
of our correspondent. This is an extra precaution to insure 
that, after the letter is opened, it reaches the person to 
whom it is addressed. It also makes intelligible the formal 
salutations: Gentlemen, My dear Sir, My dear Madam. 


Mr. Archibald Smith 1 
4321 Broadway 
New York, N. Y. 
My dear Sir: 


Mrs. Archibald Smith, 
4321 Broadway, 
or New York, N. Y. 

My dear Madam: 


1 Here, again, we may have the open or the closed punctuation. 
But we must be sure to be consistent and use the same kind of punc¬ 
tuation we have used at the top of the letter. 


LETTERS 


151 


Sir, since it takes the place of the name of a particular 
person, is capitalized. A colon follows this salutation. If 
the letter is one of friendship, the inside address is unneces¬ 
sary and we may say merely: 

Dear Jack: or Dear Jack, 

Do not use the word friend in your salutation. 

4 

THE BODY 

What we write in the letter is called the body, and its 
content depends upon the nature of the letter. 

Business letters should be clear, direct, concise, and 
tactful. There are two things we should regard especially 
in this sort of letter: the first is the inclusion of everything 
necessary to a clear stating of the object of the letter; 
the second is the omission of everything that is in any 
manner irrelevant, impertinent, or inconsistent with the 
impersonal tone of the letter. The appeal, whatever it is, 
should always be made in a courteous, business-like, and 
self-respecting manner. 

Social notes, which are semi-formal letters, are like busi¬ 
ness letters in having a definite aim; but they should have 
more individuality and grace. 

Friendly letters should be natural and interesting, and 
should show consideration for the person to whom they 
are written. Family letters, though more intimate, should 
show the same consideration for the person to whom they 
are written. 

5 

CONCLUSION AND COMPLIMENTARY CLOSE 

In concluding a letter, try to be natural. Amateur 
writers and some business men think they need an excuse 


152 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


for ending a letter. The amateur writer feels it necessary 
to be interrupted by the dinner bell; the business man 
closes by hoping something, or thanking in advance. Such 
artificial means of ending a letter are unnecessary and 
awkward. If you need to express any expectations say, 
“I hope,” or “ I trust ” and close your letter with a period 

The complimentary close, like the salutation, is a fixed 
form, set aside only in very intimate letters. Formal letters 
close with Yours truly, or Yours respectfully. Friendly 
letters with Yours sincerely , cordially , faithfully , or affec¬ 
tionately. Do not omit the word yours or the comma at 
the end. Write out your name in signing a letter. Do not 
use initials. 

6 

THE ENVELOPE 

The envelope of a letter is important because so many 
people see it. The writing must be legible and properly 
spaced. Names of states other than your own should be 
written out. Your own address should appear on the face 
of the envelope in the upper left-hand corner, for this will 
insure the return of the letter to you if for any reason it 
does not reach its destination. 

The breeding and education of a person are easily re¬ 
flected in the appearance and taste of a letter. 

Exercise 1. — Criticise the following letters: 

A Letter of Application 

115 W. 34 St. 

May 2, 1923 
New York, N. Y. 

My dear Sir: 

I am applying for a position with your firm because I need 
a job, as I am a member of a large family. I can do almost 


LETTERS 


153 


any kind of work equally well. I am physically strong and 
have finished elementary school. Please let me hear at once. 
I am sure you will find me a great help in your business. 

Sincerely, 

Frank Mayo 

A Letter Asking for Reference 

5/2/23 

City. 

My dear Mr. -; 

You will remember that I was in your class two years ago. 
I need a reference for a job in a summer hotel. Please write 

Mr. - at your earliest convenience and oblige, 

An old pupil, 

John Anderson 

A Letter to a Mother from Camp 

Dear Ma: 

Nothing new here. I wish you’d send me a new tennis 
racquet. You know the kind I want. Hoping you will send 
it soon, I remain 

Your loving son, 

A1 

A Letter of Invitation 

Dear Friend Jack: 

I am having a crowd over at my house. I hope you will 
come. Let me know. The telephone is ringing. So long. 

Mike 

Exercise 2. — Rewrite one of the letters in Exercise 1, 
using the correct form, supplying omissions, and correcting 
crudities. 

Questions: 

1. What kind of paper should be used in social letters? 

2. Which words in the heading may be abbreviated? 


154 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


3. Why is the date necessary in all letters? 

4. When does an address accompany the salutation? 

5. Why is the appearance of the envelope so important? 

6. Who are the only people who can afford to violate the rules 

of correct letter writing? 

Remember. — People have to judge you by externals 
until they have a deeper knowledge of you. 


SUBJECTS FOR LETTERS 

I. SCHOOL 

1. A request to be excused. 

2. An apology for an indiscretion. 

3. A request for a reference. 

4. A letter to the school newspaper advocating a change 

of some kind. 

5. A letter to your teacher or principal telling him of some 

injustice. 

II. BUSINESS 

1. A letter in answer to an actual advertisement. 

2. A letter ordering some specific article from an actual 

advertisement. 

3. A letter to a department store asking to have a mistake 

rectified. 

4. A letter to a camp which you may wish to join. 

5. A letter to the manager of some athletic team in another 

high school arranging for a game with your school. 

III. (a) NOTES OR SEMI-FORMAL LETTERS 

1. An invitation to a friend to attend a party you are 

giving. 

2. A letter of acceptance. 


LETTERS 


155 


3. A letter regretting your inability to accept an invitation. 

4. A letter inviting your teacher to an entertainment. 

5. A letter to some man of prominence asking him to ad¬ 

dress your club. 

(b) INFORMAL OR FRIENDLY LETTERS 

1. A letter about your life in high school to a boy who has 

gone to work. 

2. A letter to cheer up a friend who is just recovering 

from an illness. 

3. A letter in which you introduce yourself to a boy or 

girl in some other school or country. 

4. An interesting letter to some one of your own age whom 

you know well. 

5. A letter to an older person who is interested in you and 

your work. 

LIST OF COMPOSITION TOPICS 1 

1. My first (a) day at school 

(6) swim 

(c) fight 

(d) play 

(e) dollar 

(/) fishing trip 

(gr) chance to be a hero 

( h ) platform speech 

(i) cooking experience 

2. My father’s or my first impression of New York. 

3. Something I keep putting off. 

4. What attracts my attention on the street. 

5. My choice of a profession. 

6. A classroom pest. 

1 These topics are not titles, please note. 


156 


SENTENCE SENSE AND VERB USAGE 


7. An only child. 

8. A thrilling adventure in the life of one of my ancestors. 

9. The bravest man or woman I know. 

10. A dream I can’t forget. 

11. The use I make of leisure time. 

12. Lost in the city. 

13. An autobiography. 

14. How I am of help in my family. 

15. Something I used to hate. 

16. Something I used to like. 

17. He had been a naughty dog and his appearance and 

actions showed that he knew it. 

18. The teacher loses his temper. 

19. How the gang was broken up. 

20. An appeal to honor. 

21. My ambitions. 

22. Selfishness is the basis of all misery. 

23. Something I want to say. 

24. Honesty in doing one’s school work is the best policy. 

25. Wandering about the city. 

26. A narrow escape. 

27. The boy scout. 

28. The influence of my family upon me. 

29. Everyday manners. 

30. If I had three wishes. 

31. An original fairy story. 

32. A knightly adventure. 

33. A squire in the court of King Arthur. 

34. The pleasures one can have in the city. 

35. The pleasures one can have in the country. 

36. The mysterious man. 

37. An adventure in a haunted house. 

38. My term in office. 


INDEX 


Adjectives, 12 

comparison of, 18 
mistakes, 33 
predicate adjective, 31 
proper, 85 

Adverbs, 13 

mistakes, 33 

Apostrophe, 16, 17, 90, 91 

Capital letters, 85-88 
mistakes, 87 

Clauses, 106-111 

dependent or subordinate, 
106 

independent, 93, 99 

Comma, 90, 95, 101, 107, 108 
113, 152 

Conjunctions, 13 

co-ordinate, 99-100 
subordinating, 106, 107, 110 

Dictionary, 145-148 

Double negatives, 49 

Expletives, 24 

Infinitives, 19, 36, 93 

Inflection, 16-21 

Interjections, 10 

Language, 1-9 
English, 2 
inflected, 16 


non-inflected, 17 
origin, 1, 10 
Letters, 149-155 
headings, 150 
salutations, 150 
subjects for, 154-155 

Mood, 120-126 

conditions, 121-125 
imperative, 121 
indicative, 120 
mistakes, 124 
subjunctive, 121 

Nouns, 11 

apposition, 90 
declension, 17 
direct address, 90 
direct object, 32 
predicate nominative, 31, 32 
proper, 85 
Number, 35, 46 

compound subject, 38 
mistakes, 38 

Parts of speech, 10-15 
Person, 35, 46 
Phrases, 93-97 
mistakes, 95 

Parallel structure, 75, 101, 102 
Participles, 19, 36, 64, 93, 95 
mistakes, 96 


157 


INDEX 


158 

Predicate, 22, 89 
compound, 98 
Prepositions, 13, 93 
Pronouns, 12, 85, 
declension, 18 
mistakes in case, 33 

Quotations, 112-114 
Quotation marks, 108, 113 

Sentence, 22 

complex, 106 
compound, 98-105 
declarative, 26 
end punctuation of, 26 
exclamatory, 26 
interrogative, 26 
simple, 89 
Slang, 7 

Spelling, 129-144 
alphabet, 129 
doubling consonants, 138 
“ei” “ie”, 142 
final “e”, 137 
final “y”, 137 
prefixes, 132 
silent letters, 141 
suffixes, 136 
Subject, 22, 73, 89 
compound, 38, 89 
position of, 23, 24 
Semi-colon, 101 


“Should” and “would,” 58, 117, 
121, 124 

Tenses, 40-72 

compound, 60-63 
future, 56-59 
future perfect, 71-72 
past, 51-55 
past perfect, 69-71 
present, 46-50 
present perfect, 64-68 
primary, 115 
secondary, 117 
sequence of, 115-119 
simple, 40-44 

Verbs, 11 

agreement, 36 
conjugation of, 19, 20 
copulative, 31, 73 
finite parts of, 36 
intransitive, 30, 73 
often confused, 78-84 
principal parts, 79-84 
regular and irregular, 50 
transitive, 31, 73 
Verb phrases, 19 
Voice, 73-77 

mistakes, 74, 75 

Word order, 17, 23 Ex. 2, 24 
Ex. 3, 89, 95 
Words in series, 90 
























/ 
















r 



































♦ 


























9 



































♦ 



